


Bad Timing

by Crimson_Lines



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bottom Draco, Established Relationship, Infidelity, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4060927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Lines/pseuds/Crimson_Lines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry waits for his boyfriend to fall in love with him. Draco waits for the right man to come along, and life waits on no one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waiting for a Smile

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fan-fiction. No copy write infringement is intended. Harry Potter and all recognizable characters are the property of JK Rowling and associates.

The lime green robes swish as the Mediwizards pass purposefully to and fro. No matter how hurried they are, however, they always spare a glance and then a second one to the man sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs outside Healer Lovegood’s office. The mop of black hair is not recognized by most, but as soon as the eye lands on the rounded spectacles they rush back up to the man’s forehead looking for the famous scar that is well hidden behind the wild mop. Harry pays no attention to the slowed pace of the healers, mediwizards, and patients who pass his seat. He pays no attention to their eyes and no one approaches him. No one dares, the savior’s posture clearly indicates he does not want to be bothered. His arms rest on the top of his mascular thighs, his hands balled into tight fists that seem to be waiting for an unfortunate victim to land on, and the eyes, those famous green eyes, have never matched the color of the killing curse more closely.

 

Harry stares straight ahead at the door across from him while he waits. He can feel his magic pulsing almost painfully, gathering in his tightly balled hands. He does not want to be in fucking St. Mungo’s, he does not want to be in the fucking hallway, he does not want to be in fucking Britain!

The magic is almost eating the skin of his hands, demanding release, demanding he attack, kill, maim, and then the center of all his problems turns the corner at the end of the hallway. He hears the small pause in the steps and knows when he sees him. Harry takes a deep breath, attempting to clear his gaze from the red tint that has obscured it as soon as he sensed the other’s approach. He straightens in his chair and slowly turns his head toward the direction of the steps. There he is, Draco Malfoy, looking pale and walking directly towards Harry. Harry’s gaze slides from the sharp features down to the other man’s midsection were the slightest of bumps is visible through Malfoy’s tight fitting summer robes. It looks like Malfoy had indulged in too much beer or a heavy lunch. Harry stands as Malfoy finally reaches his side but his eyes remain on the small bump. He feels the heat swarm in him again. He feels trapped in this stupid hallway with fucking Malfoy and that _thing_.     

 

“Potter” is all Malfoy says once he reaches Harry’s side. His voice is soft, tired. He does not seem nervous like the last time they spoke. He seemed…uncaring, and more than anything, Malfoy’s attitude makes Harry want to turn and walk right out of the hospital and apparate out of the country. It fills him with so much rage that he cannot draw breath because there is no place to fucking put the air in. The hatred is so overwhelming he wants to conjure Findfire and throw Malfoy in it, because that had been his mistake, not letting the git roast to death eight years ago.

 

Without saying a word, Harry moves toward the door, opening it and walking into the room without bothering to knock or look back to see if Malfoy has followed him. Harry does not bother to greet Luna when she looks at him across her desk. She does not say anything until Draco stands next to Harry. As soon as Malfoy stands there, she moves around the desk with a polite smile. “Well, hello Draco, Harry” she greets, then turns towards Malfoy. “Congratulations Draco” she says. “Thank you,” Malfoy responds, giving her a polite smile while his right hand comes up to cradle the bulge on his lower belly, and Harry Potter wants to scream. 

 

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

Screams…of pleasure. That was the first thing Harry heard when he walked into his apartment. His heart thumped hard against his ribcage as if trying to escape his body and run out the door he had just silently walked through. Soon the high moans and screams were accompanied by heavy moans made by another voice. “Ye…yeeess, please,” he heard, and could practically see Draco’s back arching as he said it, because he had seen Draco do it. He had seen him do it so many times and— “AH! Ah..harder please, please fuck me!” Harry did not want to, but his feet took him slowly further into his apartment to the corner where the entrance hallway turned to open into the open living space of the dining room and living room. His eyes were immediately glued to the two men on his couch. One masculine blond that looked slightly familiar and who was lodged between the legs of another impossibly blond man. Draco Malfoy’s eyes were tightly shut as he strained to open himself more for the thrusts of the man above him. He had placed one long lean leg on the coffee table while the other was pushed close to his chest and held there by his partner’s hand.

 

Draco seemed unable to stop moving, his hands traveled over the shoulders and back of the other man. His pelvis kept lifting off the couch in an attempt to fuck himself harder on the man’s cock. “Oh Bran, right there, please right there. Oh fuck…so close, close, fuck me, fuck me Bran. Bran please. Please!” He begged, and Harry finally recognized the man who was fucking his boyfriend. Brandon Davis, an investor that had been interested in Draco’s potion research and wanted to finance the blind study Draco wanted to conduct or something like it. Harry didn’t care what. He wanted to leave, to disaparate silently out of the damn place and….But he couldn’t. He wanted to stop watching as Davis licked and bit Draco’s pale throat. He wanted to at least close his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to watch Draco grab the other man’s ass forcing him to fuck him harder. He wanted to make his ears stop listening to Davis’s: “So good, Draco you feel so good, so hot baby, come for me Draco.” He wanted to scream if it would drown Draco’s cry of ecstasy as Davis grabbed his cock and pulled just like Draco liked, with a hard twist at the end. Harry noticed that Davis knew how Draco liked to be fucked. Davis rolled his hips, and Draco’s breath stuttered. Then Draco pulled him in for a kiss that stopped his scream as he spurted come all over Davis. Harry knew Davis was also coming because Draco became so unbelievably tight when he came that there was no way of holding back. When Davis’s head snapped back, his eyes screwed tightly shut, Harry knew he has right. And Harry felt like he was sinking into an abyss of pure pain. He wanted to lie down on the floor and never get up again because everything hurt. He wanted to puke, and he wanted his legs to fucking _move_ and take him _away_. Above all, he wanted to Obliviate himself.

 

He was almost ready to run back to the door when he saw it. Draco opened his eyes and looked at the man above him and smiled. Harry’s breath caught in that moment because he knew how Draco fucked, but he had never seen that smile on his face after, not once. Draco smiled with his eyes and lips. He moved and put a kiss on the man’s Adam’s apple, rubbed his nose on the same spot and then said, “I love you.” Quietly, simply, because it was not a declaration. It was a statement of fact both men already knew to be so. And the abyss of pain that had been swallowing Harry Potter turned into the fires of unmitigated rage and hatred like he had never known before.

 

Harry walked fully into the dining room and knew the exact moment Draco saw him. Draco’s entire body tensed and his eyes widened slightly. His reaction made Devis’s head turn also. As soon as he saw Harry there, the man pulled up so quickly that Draco could not hide a flinch of discomfort at being uncoupled so violently. Davis stood before the couch as Draco slowly moved to sit up. Draco looked up and begun with “Harry—,” but Harry did not let him finish. “Get out,” Harry said not turning to look at Draco, his entire attention on Davis. “Potter—,” the man begun but never got to finish the sentence. Harry’s magic simply swelled and then attacked, forcing Davis to apparate naked, where to Harry did not know or care. He turned to look at Draco who looked frozen on the couch, his eyes wide staring at the spot where Davis had stood two seconds ago. “What did you do to him?” he asked accusingly. “Where is he?” He stood, anger shining in his grey eyes, “Harry!” He demanded and before he could finish a blow landed on his face so sudden and forceful that he went flying into the coffee table and then the floor.  

 

Harry looked impassively at the blond on the floor as he tried to push himself up with trembling limbs. One of Draco’s hands came up to cradle his face where Harry had struck him. Harry could see blood running between the fingers and knew he broke Draco’s nose. Draco looked up at him accusingly but all the response he got was a flat “Don’t call me that” from the man that stood above him.

 

“Harry” Draco said again before he could stop the sound only to feel magic wrap around him and slam him against the wall all the way on the other side of the room, making him lose his breath again and see stars for a moment as his head cracked against the unforgiving surface. All Draco could manage to express the exploding pain was a slight whimper. “Do not call me Harry again.” The man across the room said. And for the first time in his life Draco Malfoy was truly afraid of the man standing there, who had his hands lying on his sides and with no wand in sight had forced another to apparate and was now throwing him against the wall with nothing more than a thought. As Harry approached him he begun to panic. Would Harry kill him? He needed to get out of here now; he needed to find Bran, make sure he was unharmed. Harry stood a few feet from him now and the difference in their height had never bothered Draco before, but now the extra six inches Harry had on him made him feel as if Harry was looming over him. Harry’s broad shoulders seemed like an inescapable wall. Draco knew he couldn’t fight his way out. He was naked, no wand in sight, weighed several stones less than the man before him who happened to be a highly trained Auror and could do wandless magic as easily as most people could blink.

 

And then Harry’s wide hand was wrapping around his throat, the short nails biting into his skin. “You fucking slut,” he whispered close to Draco’s face. Draco’s eyes closed but shot open again as the fingers tightened. He could not even move a hand to pull Harry’s arm away. “Please,” he said desperately. “What? Same as the please fuck me’s you were shouting before?” Harry asked with a vicious smile. Tears gathered at the edges of Draco’s eyes. “I’m sorry” he whizzed out with the little air he could gather into his lungs. Harry let go and Draco felt a moment of relief before the second blow landed on his face making his broken nose feel afire with pain and tears run down his cheeks. It felt like he might have also cracked his cheekbone smashing it against the wall. “Don’t lie to me” Harry said as he looked calmly at him.

“You are not sorry. You enjoyed it too much. In _my_ house.” Harry crossed his arms unhurriedly as Draco straightened since the magic wasn’t holding him up anymore.

 

“How long have you been fucking him?” Harry asked after a moment. Draco took a breath but before he could respond Harry interrupted “Don’t lie to me Malfoy.” Draco flinched at the use of the surname. Harry had not called him that in years. “I will use legilimency on you. It is in your best interest not to lie to me.”

 

Yes, Draco knew Harry was a fantastic legilimens, but he could not simply look through Draco’s head because Draco was a magnificent Occlumens. However, Harry could exceed enough pressure to at least know if Draco lied and then what methods he would use to find the truth? Draco’s throbbing face could already guess and preferred to avoid them. He closed his eyes for a moment and then almost whispered “three months.” He could not help flinching again when Harry took a deep breath. He could feel Harry’s magic pushing at his mind’s shields and did not fight it. He tried to cast shadows on the images of him and Bran fucking in bed, in Bran’s office, Draco’s potions lab, and in this very apartment for that last week and a half that Harry had been away for work. He knew that even without the details Harry knew. He knew when Bran kissed him for the first time in the lab, and knew that Draco did not push him away. He knew that when Bran first bend him over Draco went willingly, even if Draco spared him the moment when Bran actually pushed into him and buggered him against Draco’s work table. Harry knew that Draco had wanted it. That he had continued this for three months, not just the fucking. Harry saw the dates, the longs lunches accompanied by laughter and good wine. And Harry knew that Draco and Bran had spent the past ten days locked in Harry’s home fucking.

 

Draco had not seen a person so calmly dangerous since the war. Harry was coiled and ready to strike. Clammy sweat covered Draco at the thought. Harry’s angry magic sizzled across his skin and it was terrifying. Harry’s eyes did not leave his as he ended his examination of Draco’s head. “Have there been others?” he asked after a moment. Draco quickly shook his head, something he regretted immediately as it shot fresh agonizing pain through his head and face. “No!” He chocked out for emphasis, and when he felt the magic reach into his mind, he allowed it once more.

 

There had been no others, ever. Harry knew he was the first man Draco had ever had sex with. Until recently he thought he was also the only one but well…Draco would accept that he did have an affair but would not accept doubt about his behavior before that. In the three years since Harry and he had become intimate he had never been with anyone else, man or woman, until now. Harry confirmed this too before breaking the spell, but he seemed no less angry. He took a few steps away from Draco looking at the blond with clear disgust, as if knowing that Brandon’s come was now slowly running down the back of his thighs. “You utter shit,” he hissed raising his arm again. Draco desperately summoned his wand, only to have Harry catch it mid-air and snap it in two. “Do you think you could stop me from killing you right now?” He said as he dropped the two pieces carelessly to the floor. Draco almost fainted from fear. “You are not worth it.” Harry said as he moved further away. “When I come back,” he said when he caught Draco’s eyes, “you and everything you own will be gone. I don’t want to see you again. You will not approach me for any reason, is that clear?”

“Yes” Draco said faintly. And just like that Harry dissaparated. When the other man was gone, Draco collapse to his knees, the adrenaline that had kept him up draining from his body. He had the distinct feeling that he had barely escaped with his life, and Harry’s warning not to be in his flat when he returned propelled him to move towards the bedroom and his closet.

 

As soon as he had some clothes on he ran to the fireplace and firecalled Pansy. Pansy’s cheerful “Hello darling,” was abruptly cut off when she saw Draco’s still bloody face. “He found out” she surmised immediately. Draco did not bother to do more than slowly nod to avoid more pain from his injuries. “Please come through Pans I need your help,” he said. He saw her hesitation and quickly added, “Har—Potter is gone.” After which the young witch passed through the fires and into the living room. “Dear Merlin,” she whispered when she got a better look at Draco’s face. “You need to go to St. Mungo’s, your nose is definitely broken.” She said putting a sympathetic hand on his arm. “No time right now,” he interrupted. “I need to clear out and I don’t know how much time I have before he comes back.”

“Why didn’t you just pack then?” She questioned with a frown. “He broke my wand Pans, I need you to help me collect everything and get out of here.” He pleaded, which was humiliating, but he really could not have another confrontation with Harry.             

 

Pansy, bless her, did not need any more prompting. She immediately pulled out her wand and summoned whatever Draco told her to. They frantically collected everything Draco could think of, moving from the living room and dining room to the kitchen, guest bathroom, bedrooms, and office. Little more than an hour later all Draco could think of taking had been shrunk and stuffed into one of his two trunks, including Brandon’s clothes and wand. Lastly, Draco grabbed the pieces of his wand that still lay on the floor where Harry had thrown them, and he and Pansy flooed out of the apartment.

 

Harry did not return to his apartment until it was well past four in the morning. As he expected, the apartment was empty of both Draco and many things that had previously occupied it, making his steps echo slightly as he walked into his living room again. Harry stood a few feet from where he had stopped the first time he walked into his flat yesterday, looking at the inoffensive furniture left in his home. Without a single movement on his part, the couch burst into flames and he pulled out his wand to cast a protective bubble around the area. Slowly but surely, Harry set fire to the rest of his possessions. The dinning and kitchen tables, the desk in his office, his bed…all the surfaces on which Draco and Davis had fucked and on which Draco and Harry had fucked before that. By the time the controlled fires were extinguished and Harry had banished the ashes left behind, the apartment truly echoed in its emptiness. Slowly, Harry walked to the door and let himself out. The next day, the apartment was put up for sale at a ridiculously tempting offer. Two days later he had a contract. By the end of the week, it had been sold.


	2. Waiting out the Storm

Draco’s first few days at the Manor were uncomfortable to say the least. His father had a contained smug look about him because Malfoys do not flaunt emotions. His satisfaction with Draco’s ignoble return is more than evident. No one mentioned the three years Draco spent disgracing the family by cavorting with a half-blood. At the time Draco begun seeing Harry, Lucius had flatly refused to accept first his son’s sexual preferences and even less so his choice of partner. Their final argument had caused Draco to move out of the Manor, been thrown out more accurately, and in with Potter. Lucius had refused to speak or in any other way acknowledge Draco since.

 

And now, here they are, sitting in the airy conservatory having tea while his mother asks questions about Draco’s new partner, Brandon Davis. Draco has not explained the circumstances through which his relationship with Harry had ended and his new relationship begun. But, considering that the gossip mill has already diffused the information that Pansy rushed Draco to St. Mungo’s with a broken nose and crack cheekbone, and that he moved out of Harry’s apartment that same day and landed in front of the gates of the manor that same evening, it is not really hard to connect the dots. The slight smile on his father’s face tells Draco he already has the general idea. The only thing that could ever please Lucius about his son being queer is that he obviously cuckolded Harry Potter, Draco thinks bitterly.

 

“So he owns a potions firm?” his mother is saying as she places her cup on the saucer. The delicate china touches onto the saucer without making any noise.

“Yes, mother, _Nickolson and Davis_. They supply mostly in Ireland.” He has to clarify, since his mother knows most suppliers of London, Diagon alley and the surrounding areas. Her lips pinched ever so slightly when he affirmed that Brandon, in fact, owner of a potions operation or not, is not the owner of a _significant_ firm. Draco had expected this. Even in his father’s mind a move from the Saviour of the Wizarding world to the owner of an obscure potions firm must be a step down, or would have been if the Saviour had been anyone but Potter. Draco has always suspected that being gay with Potter, more so than being gay, was what had made his father so intransigent on the issue of his sexuality. Well, now there is no Potter. Now there is Brandon. Not as influential as most Malfoys liked their bed partners to be, but with a respectable fortune, and above all, a _pureblood_.

 

Brandon had had no associations with the Death Eaters; his entire family had remained removed from the whole issue really. It was a respectful pureblood family of means, something the Malfoys were not anymore. Oh, they were of means, nothing close to what they had before the war. The reparations and penalties, and the loss of business after the war had crippled their vaults, but still. They lived comfortably and could afford the maintenance of the Manor. What the Malfoys were certainly _not_ was respectful. Not in the eyes of the Wizarding community. Even Draco’s three year relationship with Harry Potter had not changed the fact that if most wizards did not openly scorn them, then they simply preferred to maintain their distance from the very publicly disgraced family.

 

Potter hadn’t cared though. He had not cared that Draco was either hated or ignored by most and especially by his co-workers and friends. No, Draco thought, looking at his tea and the ripples the slight shake of his hand creates in the red liquid. Potter had wanted to fuck Draco too much to care what anyone thought, and since he was the savior, who would stop him? Potter wanted his Death Eater piece of arse, then Potter should have it and that had been that. There had been some obnoxious articles, but people knew better than to question Potter to his face. The man’s magic practically bled through him, and the way he controlled that excess magic was downright terrifying. Draco narrowed his eyes at his cup.  

 

“Brandon is very gracious, his business is successful, and his family is very _old_ and respectful.” He says again, trying to remind his parents that this time he was fucking a pureblood. That has to count for something. He tries to look at his father without showing any emotion on his face. Lucius stares back blankly: “indeed,” is all he bothers to say.

 

Suddenly, Draco has the most insistent urge to throw his very delicate and expensive porcelain cup at his father’s face and scream because Lucius Malfoy had had a lot more to say than “Indeed” when Draco told him about Harry. Something to the effect of “disgrace,” “ whoring yourself to a half-blood,” “cavorting with mudbloods,” and “ no son of mine…” Was “Indeed” supposed to erase three years of insults and disregard?

 

Draco very carefully places his cup on the table before him and rises with a muttered “excuse me.” “Brandon and I have an appointment. I will return in the afternoon,” he says to no one in particular. Then turns to his mother who looks at him with a strange expression. “Mother,” then “Father,” without looking at Lucius before he turns to leave the conservatory, making his way quickly to the fireplace at the receiving room and calling Pansy’s address. “Yes love?” She says as soon as she sees his green reflection in the flames. “Have time to meet now?” He asks. He needs to get out and Brandon has an appointment in Ireland today, so Pansy it is. She smiles as if she knows she is not his preferred company, probably does know, but Draco refuses to feel guilty about it. It's not like Pansy can give him a good buggering, which he desperately needs right this moment. “Sure darling. How about Tuteller’s? I do love their martinis.”

“Yes that sounds acceptable,” he says before moving through the fire to land gracefully next to Pansy.

“My, aren’t we in a hurry to escape Mommy and Daddy,” she says smirking. The cow, Draco thinks unkindly, but cannot afford to say it aloud right now. He needs her after all.

 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

“You could have, you know, not _incendioed_ everything,” muttered Ron as they stand in the entrance hall of number 12 Grimmauld place looking at the moth eaten furniture of the receiving parlor. “I’ll decorate it to my taste.” Harry responds. Ron would normally laugh at the thought of his friend decorating…well anything really. But the dark way in which Harry says it makes it seem like the rotting wood and moth eaten curtains are exactly to his taste at the moment.

 

Ron’s nose wrinkles at the smell. That is definitely rat piss, he thinks. “Alright you need a house elf,” he declares. Harry looks at him at that, one eyebrow raised.

“Hermione” is all he needs to say.

“She’ll have to understand” Ron shouts in frustration as he considers that Hermione still opposes house-elve ownership without even letting Ron explain what it actually means. “It’s the principle of the thing” she keeps saying.

“I mean look at this place,” he continues pointing at everything apparently. “Not to mention, you need to get a curse breaker in here because, damn, the whole place reeks of Dark Magic” he finishes.

“I thought that was the rat piss,” says Harry and Ron snorts loudly before continuing.

“Seriously mate, you need a professional in here. I can see if Bill has an opening for you because this place is chock full of Dark and downright Black Magic” he repeats.

Harry doesn't bother to dispute the issue. Ron has a ridiculously high sensitivity towards all types of residual magic. The man can smell a dark spell a mile away. It had surprised everyone that. Ron, built like a brick wall, who towers over all his brothers, turned out to have what Robards had called the: “highly coveted delicate sense of magical detection.” Harry had laughed himself sick when Ron and he had finally been dismissed. But truth be told, Ron’s gift makes him a seriously good Auror and a force to be reckoned with in a duel. The man can practically sense what spell one will cast before the casting is done, which is more than a little exasperating.

 

“I mean you could have waited to sell the flat until this place was livable, you know...” Ron continues distracted. He quickly pauses when he sees Harry’s jaw clench with so much force he might have cracked a tooth. Bugger, he thinks, his mouth always runs away from him when he is distracted.

“I mean…you could stay with us awhile more mate,” Ron amended.

“All I need is the bedroom for now, Ron. I’ll just clean that up and go from there.”

“What about food?” Always important in Ron’s estimation.

“I can eat at the Ministry Cafeteria or at the Leaky.” Harry responds and moves further into the house. He has spent the last week at Ron’s and Clara’s, but he doesn't feel comfortable staying longer. The two had recently moved in together and Harry just felt awkward being his sour self there when they were obviously in the honeymoon phase. Hermione’s tiny studio is also out of the question. She is frantically studying for her Wizarding Law specialization exams and Harry doesn't want to disturb her.

 

Other friends had tentatively offered him a place to stay, but he could not stand the knowing glances. Because of course they know, everyone knows since Malfoy has been seen around Diagon with his new fuck toy. Parading the new love interest while Harry hid in Ron’s apartment seething and considering the relative benefits of an Azkaban sentence for the gruesome murder of his ex. Considering that his ex was Malfoy, he might get away with ten years, which is really tempting for Harry. Hence, he hid so as to not have the opportunity. He has never been this angry with anyone that is not a proven killer. He is frustrated, humiliated, angry, and if he is honest with himself, hurt _all_ the time. The swirl of pain and loathing sleeps and wakes with him. It breathes with him every minute of every day. There is nothing he can do about it in Ron’s cheery flat, with Clara’s paintings hanging on every wall, and flowers on the fucking kitchen table. No, what he needs is a project, something to occupy himself with. Grimmauld is exactly what he needs.

 

“You sure mate?” Ron insists, wiping his hand on his trouser leg after making the mistake of touching one of the shelves of the inbuilt that seems particularly shiny from what Harry guesses is a liberal dose of rat piss. “Yea, this’ll do just fine” he says.

 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

“So who is better?” Pansy asks as she swirls her martini with a familiar gesture. She drinks too much, Draco thinks ignoring the question. “Don’t pretend to ignore me darling.” She says and gives him a smile that's all teeth.

“I don’t know what you are on about,” he says stubbing the lettuce in his salad as if it has offended him.

“Yes you do,” she contradicts. She leans slightly forward “you are no little virgin wiffy anymore. You now have experience” she whispers conspiratorially, her eyes going mockingly wide, and Draco just itches to squirt one of the lemons sitting on his plate into the brown orbs that stare at him.

“So, tell all, who of the two does the buggering best?” She leans back as if sensing his fingers inching towards the lemon slices. Silence follows the question and Pansy’s head tilts as if a different angle will make the response more forthcoming. “Must be Davis if you threw away Potter for him. He must be the superior lay.” She reasons, but Draco simply continues his assault on the greenery on his plate. Why the hell did he even order a salad for? He sure as hell does not want to eat it.

“Or is it Potter?” Pansy continues undaunted by the silence. “You had once confessed that Potter was hung like a hippogriff or Centaur… something to that effect.” she continues, and Draco’s knife screeches across his plate making Pansy’s eyes narrow.

Buggering shit, he thinks. When had he said that to her? That’s it no more drinking with Pansy, ever. The woman uses a night out for interrogation purposes and wine works as well on Draco as Veritaserum. Now even his Cabernet Sauvignon seems unappealing, he thinks looking at the glass.

 

“Is Potter the better one then?” She asks again and Draco gives up on silence; he obviously cannot shame Pansy away from the subject by projecting indignation.

“They are different and not different Pansy, it’s fucking one way or the other.” He hopes this is enough. Pansy’s eyes widen again. “Don’t tell me Davis lets you top” she exclaimed almost shocked. “Why would I want to do that?” He asks sincerely.

 

Pansy is not unaware of his pansy bottom tastes. He knew from the first time he ever masturbated and had instinctively wiggled a finger into himself that his arse is beyond sensitive. His limited experience with the two women he had ever bedded confirmed that his cock might enjoy itself, but no orgasms were forthcoming unless his arse got some stimulation. After Potter bedded him the first time three years ago, Draco realized his sexual preference and had never looked back.

“Then just decide Draco. Who made you come harder? Who gets you off better, man? It’s not a complicated question really. It’s Davis isn’t it?” She finishes, getting slightly frustrated with his evasiveness. It's not in her nature to be shy about sex, and she despairs of his overly conservative scruples, as she calls them.    

He just looks back at her, but the small downward twitch of his bottom lip gives him away. “Oh Morgana’s tits! It’s Potter.” It isn’t a question this time. Then Pansy just throws her head back and laughs like the hyena that dropped a full grown gazelle.

“His cock is just abnormally huge. It’s not like I can help it,” which as soon as it leaves his mouth he regrets because… _really_. Pansy has also gone completely silent at the confession looking speculatively at him again. “How big are we talking?” she demands. “Biggest I’ve seen. Thick too” he confesses, might as well at this point. He grabs his wine glass and downs it quickly signaling to the waiter for a refill. If he's spilling his guts anyway, might as well enjoy the alcohol.

Pansy snorts “Biggest you’ve seen? That doesn’t mean much considering its two.”

“Don’t be daft. I’ve fucked two. I did live in an all-male dormitory Pans, played Quidditch and showered in public bathrooms for seven years. Saw plenty of cocks, thank you very much.” He finishes, raising his nose as high as it will go without making him look like an idiot staring at the ceiling.

“Well then... the size? Give me an estimate.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fine, but size ain’t all there is to it.”

“Potter knows how to fuck Pansy! His is a fucker so he would know best, wouldn’t he? What else do you want me to say!? I’m with Bran not Potter, so there,” he growls at her. Finally Pansy seems to give up on the subject.

“How’s your Salmon?” she asks and Draco has no idea, just realizing that he has move from his salad to fish, which seemed half eaten. He cannot for his life remember if _he_ ate it.

“Dry” he says, because he never approves of restaurant food, on principle.


	3. Not Waiting

_Three years ago._

 

Draco wanted to leave as soon as he walked into the absolutely revolting hallway. His expensive dragon skin loafers practically screeched as he refused to move further, which effectively pulled Potter, who was holding his hand, to a halt as well. Potter turned to give him a questioning and smoldering look at the same time. “Where are we?” Draco asked thinking that this was probably the Weasley residence, in which case his father had every reason to be disgusted by the entire tribe. “My place” Potter replied. At that, Draco felt his semi-erection, which had been there since Potter started flirting with him at the bar, wilt a little.

 

Potter apparently realized his mistake. “I’m not living here but… I’m at the Burrow right now.” Draco said nothing so Potter continued.

“The Weasley home that is,” he clarified. Draco’s hard on was completely gone now. “I though here would be better than there,” Potter finished.

“A rubbish bin would be better than this Potter,” he replied darkly, readying to apparate himself the fuck out before he got dragonpox or something. What had gotten into him? He was in some residence full of rubbish and dust and dismembered house elves? Yes, those were heads up there. And he was in this nightmare because…? What? Potter had offered him a few drinks and suddenly Draco was queer or something? Well he _was._ He was sure of that at least since the last time he saw tits he could swear he felt queasy. But he did not need to be gay with _Potter,_ in Potter’s residence, _if_ one could call it that.

“I think this was a mistake—” he begun. He did not manage to say more before Potter crowded into his personal space and started manhandling him. Potter’s lips dragged from his mouth to his neck and when one large hand landed on his arse and kneaded one cheek roughly Draco broke into a body shiver. Potter rubbed what felt like a hell of an erection against his hip and Draco almost considered that maybe the house wasn’t so bad…and then, he opened his eyes as Potter tilted his head to better lick his throat and “IS THAT A FUCKING TROLL LEG!” He screamed pushing Potter off of him.

 

Harry looked at the leg. “Yea,” he said somewhat dazed and a little shocked with the pitch Draco reached for a second there. Harry saw that he was losing Malfoy fast. The man was fastidious as all hell. If Harry didn’t want into his pants badly, he really would not have bothered. But Malfoy had a piece of art of an arse. Harry just couldn’t let go without at least one close up viewing.

 

“Potter—” Malfoy begun after he recovered his breath. “Take my arm” Potter interrupted. Draco almost didn’t, what with the fucking troll leg and all. But Potter looked so hot in his leather jacket, even in the disgusting house, and Draco wanted; he just _wanted_. He placed both arms around Potter’s bicep enjoying the firmness there before they apparated again.

 

A soon as there was firm ground under their feet, Potter started moving, half dragging Draco along. They walked out of an alley and towards the front entrance of a grand hotel. Muggle, Draco guessed, but even that was better than Potter’s house so he kept his mouth shut. Potter did not stop until he reached the reception at which point he barked “penthouse suite” at the man minding the desk. The man quickly begun taping something and then Potter gave him a plastic rectangle, which was returned along with another rectangle thing, and they were moving towards the lifts.  

 

The door slammed behind them as Potter pushed Draco against it and took his mouth again as he had on the street corner before asking Draco home with him. Draco opened his mouth and sucked Potter’s tongue into it. His arms wrapped tightly around the other man as Potter moved closer, pushing his thigh between Draco’s and rubbing against Draco’s renewed erection. “Fucking hell Malfoy.” Potter growled before pulling him off the door and walking Draco backwards while removing his shirt. Draco doubted there’d be enough left of his cashmere shirt for him to wear tomorrow. Then it just didn’t matter anymore because Draco was on a bed, shirtless, and Potter was taking off his trousers and pants as well. Draco was naked and shit, he thought, as he quickly pushed up onto his elbows to watch Potter disrobe.

 

Potter had abs, like counting abs and Draco begun salivating, which was ridiculous because lots of people had abs. But then again, Draco had never fucked anyone with abs so some excitement was warranted. And then Potter took of his trousers and underpants in a single move, and Draco’s excitement crashed right into his panic. Draco had definitely _never_ fucked anyone with a dick either. Although he had hoped he would. Well, he had hoped to start with something manageable. Potter’s cock did _not_ seem manageable. “It won’t fit.” He determined, his eyes glued to the thick shaft that touched Potter’s stomach, smearing pre-come on his abs. How can it even be erect Draco’s mind screeched, gravity should make it impossible.

 

Potter looked at Draco as he moved closer. “No it won’t,” he said. “Not just yet, but I’ll get you there.” He grabbed one of Draco’s ankles, pushing the leg apart from the other and lying between them. Before Draco could dispute the statement, Harry swallowed him to the root. Draco decided breathing was more important than arguing. “Oh fucking MARLIN,” he moaned when he finally could manage speech again. Potter was good at it. He quickly started pumping his head over Draco’s pelvis sucking quickly and twisting his tongue over the head every time he reached it. “Yes, oh! Like that Potter, suck it. Oh shit!” Draco wined. Without even realizing, the blond spread his legs further, one of his hands attempting to reach his furled hole. All he needed was a little pressure in there and he was sure he’d be coming like a Centaur in mating season.

 

Potter seemed to realize what Draco wanted because his own fingers were right there and “Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, OH MY GOD.” Draco screamed and then came as Potter deepthroated him with two fingers up his arse.

 

Draco was still shivering when Potter released him from his mouth without letting a single drop of Draco’s come from his mouth. Draco realized he had come down Potter’s throat, the man had not even needed to swallow. Which was fucking hot, but Draco’s cock couldn’t manage even a halfhearted twitch. This apparently did not bother Potter who simply smiled up at him, his glasses glinting in the low light of the room.

 

Potter rose to his knees and grabbed Draco’s ankle again, pulling the leg close to him and giving Draco’s ankle a playful lick before he moved the leg to the other side, forcing Draco to turn and lie on his stomach. “What an arse,” he heard Potter murmur as his hands caressed said attribute of Draco’s.

And then Potter was littering his cheeks with light kisses and nips. He moved from the line between Draco’s ass and his thighs all the way up Draco’s back, kissing and licking his way to the blond man’s neck. Draco’s breath caught when he felt Potter’s cock lying on top of his ass. “Gonna fuck you with it.” Potter whispered in his ear, “and you’ll like that, yea Draco?”    

“Uh-hmm,” was all he could manage too preoccupied with the thought of what something that big would feel like inside him.

 

Potter did not mind the lack of communication. He slithered down Draco’s back again kissing and licking his way down. Draco was not hard yet but he was getting incredibly hot again and knew it wouldn’t take much longer before he was ready. Potter reached his arse again and begun kissing and nipping at the flesh. “Why don’t you show me what you got to offer _Draco,_ ” he whispered into the line between the blond’s arse cheeks. Draco chocked on air as Potter said his name.

 

“Wha…?” he managed. Potter grabbed his arms that had been lying limply at his sides and brought both hands to the round globes. “Spread them for me” he ordered. Draco grabbed each cheek, twisting his head as much as he could to see Potter’s reaction as he separated them. He spread his legs as far as they would go and then pulled the two cheeks apart, pushing his hips slightly higher presenting the furled opening nestled there.

 

“Look at that,” Potter said reverently. “I’m gonna stretch you real good” he told him before licking from the root of Draco’s cock all the way to his hole. A few minutes later Draco’s body seized because Harry fucking Potter was _eating him._ There was really no other apt description for what Potter was doing. Potter’s face had disappeared into the valley of Draco’s crack, and he was biting, and kissing, and sucking and fucking Draco’s hole with his tongue. Draco wailed when he felt Potter’s tongue inside him. Draco grabbed his cock and started pulling, concentrating on the feel of Potter’s tongue. He went rock hard in a matter of minutes. “Pooooteeeeeer” he wailed again before his second orgasm hit him out of nowhere, making his eyes water and his body go so taught he could feel every muscle in it.

 

“Now that you’re a little relaxed we can get to work,” Potter said after he retrieved his tongue. Draco did not think there was much to work with, he was done. He had already come twice hard enough to go cross-eyed. If Potter missed his chance to get off with Draco that was entirely his fault Draco decided. He let his eyes close because a nap was definitely in order.

 

Draco woke about forty minutes later with what felt like three fingers moving in an out of him. “You are a seriously heavy sleeper Malfoy,” he heard Potter say from behind him. “Potter?”

“I’ve been working you since you fainted” Potter said with a smirk as he tried to push a fourth finger into Draco. “You are so tight.” Potter breathed as Draco’s hole refused to stretch for another finger. “When was the last time you bottomed?” he asked distracted as he conjured more lube around and into Draco. “Never.” Draco responded as distracted by the feeling of his overly stretched opening.

 

“What?” Potter asked. “Never been with a man,” Draco explained. “At all?” Potter asked again. “What about it, you don’t fuck virgin arse?” Draco asked irritated by now. He had been starting to enjoy himself again and now Potter’s fingers were barely touching his entrance. He heard Potter chuckle at that. “Not at all, got nothing against it, but we’ll need more lube.”

“Alright” Draco agreed as Potter’s fingers breached him again.

 

It took Potter a full ten minutes before he had four fingers in moving easily and Draco was moaning and rubbing against the sheets beneath him. “I’m ready Potter, just, oh, just get on before I come again.” “You can come if you want,” Potter replied. “Wanna come from your cock,” Draco said lifting his hips.

“Oh Marlin, that sounds lovely Malfoy,” and suddenly the fingers were gone and Potter’s warm body covered his.

 

“Lift a bit onto your knees” Potter ordered wrapping an arm around Draco’s middle while guiding his cock. Draco felt the engorged head of Potter’s shaft pushing at him as Potter breathed into his ear, “take a deep breath and exhale slowly, alright, just relax for me, hmmm.” Draco did as he was told, feeling the head breach him easily, and as he slowly breathed out Potter pushed in.

“Aaaaah” he moaned as he felt more and more pressure. “Half way there, fucking tight…” Potter strained to say and Draco wanted to scream, feeling full and stretched to capacity and only _half_ way there.

“Buggering hell,” he growled as his elbows digged into the matters and his thighs shook spasmodically. Potter pulled back and Draco took a breath only to release it in a whoosh when Potter push further into him. “’Bit more” Potter whispered against his shoulder through his teeth and pushed again. Draco’s eyes widened as he felt Potter push the last few inches and the thickest part in, a few tears slipping out involuntarily when Potter bottomed out.

“Oooooh, fucking a Centaur would have been easier,” Draco murmured brokenly and heard Potter chuckle at it. “You’re doing great.” Potter told him placing kisses on the nape of his neck.

 

Potter lifted onto his knees and the movement caused his shaft to press and drag against Draco’s prostate. “Fucking Morgana!” Draco yelled, his eyesight going wonky for a moment. It was the last coherent thing he said as Potter begun fucking in earnest. Potter’s patience had been apparently exhausted and his pace was brutal. Draco tried to remain on his elbows as Potter’s thrusts had him screaming into a pillow. He could feel the ring of muscle around his hole stretching, grabbing onto Potter as he pushed and pulled in and out. His prostate was mercilessly pounded and dragged on constantly, raking his entire body with electric spasms.

 

If Draco could have maintained his balance without using both arms, he would have made a grab for his cock, which was not getting any attention. He gave up on it when Potter pushed hard enough that he had a split second to throw his arms out and brace them against the headboard or suffer an injury. Suddenly Potter’s large arm landed on his shoulder pulling him back into each of the brunet’s thrusts. The relentless pounding was too much for Draco and with a silent scream he came like never before. “My…my God Draco you feel good” he heard Potter say just before his third orgasm. With that Draco’s body seized again, his cock gushed with so much strength it hurt, his eyesight went black. He was aware enough to know he had come with his cock untouched and that Potter had come too, was still coming in fact, filling him with warm spurts. There will be bruises, he thought as he felt Potter’s hands squeeze his shoulder and hip. With a heavy moans they flopped onto the mattress and slept.

 

That night they had sex twice more on Potter’s insistence, which was how Draco experienced his first two dry orgasms. Minutes before sunrise, Draco crawled off the bed to dress. He looked at the bed where Potter slept, debouched with a slight smile on his face, and considered leaving a note, but quickly discarded the notion. Potter would find him if he wanted to. As soon as he dressed, he disapparated directly to his bedroom in Malfoy Manor. Without bothering to remove his clothes he flopped into bed and was asleep before the sun shone on the horizon.

 

Only four hours later Draco woke again, his bladder demanding release. He slowly grabbed his wand and cast a tempus. He was starving, so he very gingerly limped toward the en suite, being mindful of the shooting pain running down his lower back. He felt sore and sticky, and still exhausted, and overall fantastic. He smiled into the spray of his shower as it washed away Potter’s scent.

 

Draco carefully walked into the breakfast room where his parents were already seated before the steaming feast the elves had prepared for breakfast. He could feel his mouth fill with saliva at the sight. He was starving.

 

He took his seat across from Narcissa Malfoy, offering an affectionate “Mother” before turning to his father at the head of the table and respectfully adding “Father.” “Draco.” Narcissa responded with a smile, which was echoed by Lucius from behind his _Prophet._ The formalities done with, Draco quickly filled his plate and served himself a cup of tea, tucking in with gusto.

 

He was going over last night’s events in his mind when his father threw his paper onto the table with a sigh of disgust. “Wizarding Britain has lost all sense of propriety, falling over themselves over a brutish half-blood.” Lucius sneered at the paper. Draco tuned to look at the offending material, only to see Potter’s determined face on the front cover. Potter looked intimidating, his lips a thin line and his Auror robes giving him an air of implacable defender of the good and just.

The article was about the arrest that Potter had been celebrating the previous evening with his comrades at the bar. “The war recently ended. It’s to be expected that Mr. Potter’s popularity is still high,” he heard his mother comment. “A half-blood that rejects all customs by which we have lived for centuries is the darling of the media and the Ministry alike. That man will destroy what little is left of our world, of our _traditions._ ” Lucius finished with loathing, looking at Potter’s image. Draco quickly turned his attention back to his plate with the distinct feeling of Potter moving inside him still fresh in his mind and body. When he took another bite, he discovered that his appetite had deserted him.


	4. Waiting for an Answer

Two months of distance has not made being around Potter any more comfortable than it was the last time they were in a room together. At least, this time Draco is fully dressed, which makes him feel minimally better.

“Well, shall we begin with the examination to—”

“Can you determine the paternity at this point?” Potter interrupts Lovegood’s speech unapologetically. Draco tries not to allow any outward reaction to the question. His embarrassment at the mere thought of _needing_ the paternity determined is something he does not want to share with the occupants of the office.

“Well,” Lovegood says before summoning a folder from her desk. She opens the folder and quickly continues. “Yes, Draco is currently in the last week of his first trimester so the charm would be safe to cast.”

“Would you like to go through your prenatal exam first?” She questions Draco, clearly purposefully ignoring Potter.

“No. There’s no need for Potter to be present for that” he replies. She accepts this and politely indicates that they should follow her as she moves to the adjacent room where the exam table is.

As soon as Draco reclines on the exam table, after uncomfortably removing his button down shirt, she turns to Potter. “I will need a blood sample from you Harry,” she tells him. Potter quickly offers her his hand. With a mild cutting jinx, Lovegood makes a shallow cut on Potter’s index finger, enough for a fat drop of blood to gather on the pad of the finger.

She then touches the point of her wand to the blood, saturating the tip and turns back to Draco. Lovegood waits for Draco's nod before she begins casting.

 

The room is silent except for the almost musical words of Lovegood’s incantation. Potter follows every movement of Lovegood’s wand, his eyes suspicious and cold. He has no idea what Lovegood is casting; Draco is sure, and neither does Draco. Not the specifics at any rate, it's a highly medical charm, not something you come across randomly.

 

As Lovegood continues to cast at his midsection he considers his situation, while his personal incantation runs over and over in his head. _Please, please, please not Potter’s._ He internally repeats over and over. He really cannot change the fact that this is a fifty-fifty situation because he had been actively having sex with Bran _and_ Potter on the month of conception. But, he hoped. His body could not betray him like this, he thinks and hopes.

In any event, if he conceived so soon after he begun sleeping with Bran, but had not before despite the years of unprotected intercourse he had indulged in with Potter, then logic indicates that Potter and he are not compatible, or Potter is sterile. It has to be Bran’s. They had barely been together a month before Draco got pregnant. The thought calms him. Of course it's Brandon’s. Potter and he were magically incompatible or something, so when Bran came along Draco conceived, simple as that. That explained everything; it's the _only_ acceptable explanation. Even if his last conversation with Brandon about his surprise pregnancy had gone pear-shaped, Draco is sure that once he has confirmation that this is Brandon’s child, they will work things out.

 

Potter is beginning to look impatiently at Lovegood, as if itching to grab the wand from her and finish the incantation himself, even if he does not know said spell. Draco hates the idea of agreeing with Potter even on a pronouncement about the weather, but Lovegood is taking an awful amount of time with this. A good twenty minutes have gone by since she begun and there is no end in sight.

 

Twenty or so minutes later, Lovegood finally stops. She brings her wand high over Draco’s stomach as the tip of her wand glows bright yellow and waits, panting slightly from the stress of chanting for three quarters of an hour. Draco feels the magic inside him, warm like the color shining from the tip of Lovegood’s wand. It is not painful, just heavy, like a fat Kneazle sitting on his lower belly. Then the magic slowly retreats, and Draco turns to see the glow of Lovegood’s wand tip turn sky blue; the color paints the white walls powder blue as it shines in the small room.

“It’s a positive match” she declares, and Draco feels his stomach drop.

“Are you sure?” Potter asks, clearly making an attempt not to yell at the Healer who also happens to be his long-time friend.

“Yes, this is what happens when the signature of the magical core of the blood donor matches the magical lining of the fetus. Otherwise, it would have been red,” she explains calmly indicating the still glowing tip. Draco’s rises slowly and concentrates on holding down the bile that determinedly rises up his esophagus.

He had thought he was done with vomiting. But, it should have been Bran’s, he thinks. It has to be Brandon’s! It just has to…but it isn’t, the blue light mockingly seems to say. He believes Lovegood. She is a good Healer with specialization on pregnancy and fertility treatments. That is why Potter demanded that she examine Draco. Well, that and the suspicion that Draco would bribe any other Healer to say the kid was his so that he could get his hands on the Black and Potter vaults. Potter had had no qualms telling him this to his face when Draco spoke to him about the pregnancy. The accusation had chuffed. First, because he did not want it to be Potter’s, and second because it alluded to the reduced circumstances of his family.

 

“How accurate is this spell?” Potter insists, refusing to accept the verdict.

“Very accurate I’d say.” Lovegood responds. It must be a taxing spell as she still breaths rapidly and there is a light shine of sweat on her forehead that had not been there until she begun casting.

“How accurate?” Potter demands.

Lovegood’s eyes narrow. For the first time Draco sees an expression of impatience on her face. “There is a one in ninety two million possibility that you are not the father. So, I’d say it’s accurate.”

“But—”

“Harry, you are as close to a match as you can get. I’d say the fetus’s dominant magical signature is yours and not Draco’s otherwise the result would have been less pronounced.” When she sees Potter take a breath to argue, she continues. 

“Even if you had an identical twin brother this spell would still be able to positively determine paternity to you and not him. The spell uses blood and an incantation that, as you saw, is not easy to cast. It uses your core magical signature in combination to blood but also takes into consideration the changes wrought by magical maturation, which occurs during our teen years. So, even if you had a twin since magical maturation is dependent on the environmental exposure of the wizard before maturation, you and the hypothetical twin would have identifiably different signatures after maturation.” Potter, nothing if not stubborn, narrows his eyes, but Lovegood interrupts again.

“Harry,” she says with a hint of pity and this time it’s the friend speaking, not the Healer. “I chose _Sanguinem et animam parentis_ because it is the most accurate spell in existence. I used it because I know how important this is to you.” That finally convinces Potter. Lovegood obviously had chosen the most accurate and definitive spell there is to eradicate any room for doubt concerning the result. There can be no doubt, not in Potter’s mind nor in Draco’s.

Potter says nothing more. He turns and disappears out the door. Soon Draco hears the door in Lovegood’s office slam behind Potter. “How?” He says looking at the young Healer. “I’ve been having sex with Potter for three years, why now?” 

“I cannot say with any degree of certainty why you had not conceived before.” She responds and picks up his folder from a side desk. “According to Healer Aidenbrige’s exam results, you have a fully developed womb, which does not happen in a day.” Draco remembers the Healer that had originally examined him telling him something similar. “What does that mean?! I though potions were necessary to induce pregnancy in a wizard, but here I am.” He indicates his midsection accusingly."

That is a common misconception” she says, turning fully to him again. “Potions are necessary if a partial womb exists or if there is no womb at all.”

“So how did I end up with a womb?!”

“Well, it has to do with a correlation between sexual interactions and magic. Was your first sexual experience with a man?”

“No, I…my first two relationships were with women,” which he likes not to think about. The experiences had been traumatizing enough to turn him celibate. Well, celibate until Potter in any case.

“What about masturbation?” She asks.

“What about it?”

“Is stimulation of the anus and prostate gland part of your masturbation practice?” Draco really fights the blush; he tries, but he is just too pale and the color is obvious on his cheeks. This is why he hates Healers; they always ask the most improper questions.“I…yes, I…”

“Since when?” She asks, professionally ignoring his discomfort, which helps him continue less awkwardly.“Since I started. I…I used my fingers the first time and ever since” he confesses.

“What age?”

“I don’t know Lovegood! Twelve, thirteen?”

“That makes sense. If stimulation of the prostate and anal walls was continually associated with sexual pleasure when your magic was so malleable, before maturation…yes, that would have prompted the development of the womb.” She says distracted as she writes into his file with a self-refilling quill.

“My magic decided I wanted to be pregnant?” Draco asks sarcastically.

“Magic did not decide anything. It simply responded to the circumstances that your biological structure could not fulfill. It’s what magic does Draco. Biologically your body wants to procreate, so your magic responded to the instinct and begun developing what it considered the necessary equipment considering what your sexual behaviour was.”

“You mean I could have gotten pregnant in my teens?!”

“Oh, no. Your womb was magically induced so conception would not have been viable until your core stabilized after your maturation.” 

“Then why now?” Draco asks for the second time. Lovegood stares into the distance for a moment, a look that reminds Draco of the strange teenager he had met at Hogwarts. However, she quickly refocuses dispelling the memory.

“What did you say you were working on? When we met at the Christmas gala, what was it?” She asks him.

“Suppressant potions for treatment of Dark magic damage of the magical core.” The suppressant potions he had begun developing during his mastery research have been the center of his life. Has been so since he began researching them after his mother had been diagnosed with accidental discharge. According to the Healers, damage to her core from exposure to dark magic (the Crutiatus at the hands of his dear aunt Bella Draco guessed) could become severe enough to drain her core and kill her at any moment. Draco has been working on suppressant and stabilizer potions for the better part of five years. 

“What do you use for a base?”

“Asphodel for most. It’s less toxic than some of the other bases.”

“Brewing suppressant potions—”

“I haven’t ingested any of them.” Draco protested.“You wouldn’t have to. Asphodel is used in contraceptive potions as well. With enough exposure just the fumes would have been enough. Do you use a bauble charm when you work?”

“No.” Of course he did not. No brewer worth his salt would use a charm that blocks his sense of smell. Often the slightest change in odor could indicate a grievous mistake in advanced potions. Mistakes that could turn a helpful brew into a deadly concoction.  “I haven’t been brewing with Asphodel in the past few months.” He says, confirming Lovegood’s suspicions. “Been working through Ministry permits and already got a full supply in different concentrations for primary testing. There was no need to. I stopped brewing with Asphodel as the base…” five months ago. He had begun working on permits and financing by potions firms, which led to him meeting Bran.

“Bugger me,” he breaths out. “Yes, that also had to happen” Lovegood responds. But he does not bother to pay her rude remark any attention. He is thinking of how to explain being impregnated by his ex-lover to his current-lover. _Oh, Bran,_ he thinks, and feels his heart constrict.


	5. Awaiting surprise

_A month previously…_  

Draco moved between his potion ingredient shelves slowly, quill in hand, marking what he needed to purchase for the next month. He had a slight smile on his face as he counted the preserved Fluxweed jars. He would need at least two cases more as well as fresh samples for his next set of experimental potions. He considered approaching Longbottom for the fresh samples, but quickly decided that visiting Potter’s friends, even in a professional capacity, was not advisable.

Asphodel bases had proven beneficial but somewhat rigid in the way they contained the magical discharges. A combination with Fluxweed might correct the problem, or it could all explode in his face. The idea did not bother him, such were the hazards of his profession after all. He cast a quick _Tempus_ and smiled again. He was to meet Bran in twenty minutes for an extra-long lunch, but he decided he could drop by Bran’s office a little earlier. Draco was sure they’d find something to occupy themselves with behind locked doors for half an hour or so. He quickly sent his quill and parchments sailing to his writing desk in the corner and summoned his cloak, already half way to the door of the lab. 

An hour later, he was pulling his pants back on leisurely, still shivering from his orgasm, while Bran lounged on the other side of the enlarged couch.

“Lunch?” Draco questioned. One round of sex did not usually make him hungry but these days he couldn’t get enough, of sex or food. He attributed the change to being happier now than he had been in years.

“We have used up most of our lunch break already,” Bran answered with a smirk.

“Time well spent,” Draco told him with a smile.

“Most certainly,” was his response. Bran’s eyes heated again and Draco’s body felt empty again, but he _was_ hungry.

“Lunch,” he said brooking no argument. It should have told him something that. Draco had never prioritized food over sex. It should have been his first clue, he later thought. 

As it happens, his first clue were the three consecutive days in which he woke up to run to the loo and empty his stomach. He had been sicking up more frequently even before that but had always dismissed it as stress, when he was still living with Potter or exposure to noxious ingredients, when he was in the potions lab, and bad restaurant food on the other rare occasions. However, when the vomiting became a daily occurrence, he decided he needed a Healer. 

That same afternoon, Draco visited Healer Eugene Aidenbrige. Healer Aidenbrige was a portly, older wizard with drooping blue eyes. He was not particularly friendly nor hostile, apparently not caring one way or another about Draco’s last name. After a full body scan, Healer Aidenbrige drew some blood, dropping a drop in each of three potion vials the Mediwizard had brought in, each examining his blood content for deficiencies or other detectable problems. The results of the potions automatically registered on Draco’s file, which the Healer perused carefully.  

“You are slightly anemic Mr. Malfoy but this is to be expected. You are pregnant. I’ll prescribe some supplemental potions to deal with the anemia and some anti-nausea drafts, nothing too strong this early into the pregnancy,” Aidenbrige said casually, not bothering to look at Draco as he wrote out the prescription. Draco, for his part, had stopped listening after “pregnant.”

“What?” He blinked at Aidenbrige.

“You are anemic due to—” Healer Aidenbrige begun to repeat.

“Not that! I mean, I can’t be pregnant.” Draco told him completely flabbergasted with the very notion.

“Why not?” responded the Healer.

 _Why not_? Draco wanted to laugh hysterically, well _because_. He had not taken any of the potions, or done any of the treatments to develop a womb. Wizards did not get pregnant without a womb, well neither did witches come to think about it. Point being, a womb was necessary.

“No womb.” Was all he managed to tell Aidenbrige.

Aidenbrige quickly pointed his wand at Draco’s middle. After casting a few spells, he looked at Draco’s file again where the results registered. “Fully developed womb, gestation currently approximately between eight and nine weeks. You will be due early winter unless you want to take different action?”

“Abortion?” Draco asked slightly dazed and still not fully convinced the healer wasn't talking out of his ass.

“Yes, you are still capable of aborting but this will not be possible once you reach the end of your first trimester. It is too dangerous to perform the procedure after the birthing canal begins to develop,” Aidenbrige explained in a medical monotone.

“I…I will think about it. Thank you.”

“Here is your prescription. Let the front office know if you will need monthly appointments or not.”

Draco did not respond. He moved to the door and before realizing it, he was apparating to the Manor and walking out the grand doors to the gardens. He walked, and walked, and walked. I need Bran, was the only thought he allowed into his mind as he aimlessly wondered about.

 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 

Brandon and he were doing well. That’s what Draco told himself when some awkwardness surfaced. It had been difficult after Potter walked in on them. Brandon had been very uncomfortable after that, what with being apparated naked to the middle of London. Not to mention, the man that caught him fucking his boyfriend was Harry Potter.

Draco reasoned that the distance the incident had created between them would ease away when Bran accepted that Potter was not out for blood. He also reasoned that lots of sex would also make Bran remember what an amazing lover Draco was. Taking some risks to get into Draco’s pants was worth it, or their relationship would have never started. 

The past month they had spent more time together, not openly as a couple per se. It was not advisable. Neither Draco nor Bran wanted the negative press that Draco parading a new lover so soon after his breakup with the Saviour would produce. But behind closed doors they were happy, together.

Despite this, Draco felt very nervous about meeting Bran a week after his medical examination. He should have spoken to him about this before now, but he had procrastinated using one excuse or another for it until now. He was sitting on Tuteller’s patio despite the chill with a hot cuppa while he waited for Brandon.

Draco had considered how to approach the subject, but there was just no easygoing way of announcing an unplanned pregnancy. How was he supposed to ease into it? Hey love, you know how I’ve been puking my guts out all the time? Yea, that’s cause I’m preggers… “That’d go down well,” he said with an annoyed scowl marring his features.

“What will?” Brandon asked as he seated himself across from Draco, giving him a sweet smile that reached his brilliant blue eyes. The first time Draco had met him, he had the impression that Brandon’s eyes were like ice-chips, the warmth he saw there always took him by surprise. 

“Hello,” he said, returning the smile. “Why are we outside? Do you want to get a table inside?”

“No!” Draco said promptly. There were too many people inside and he preferred to avoid crowds since his breakup, especially when he ventured out with Brandon. Now more than at any other time, he wanted to avoid preying eyes. Just to be safe, he cast a quick _Muffliato,_ before straightening in his seat. Bran’s eyebrows raised at this.

“Are we having a _talk_?” He asked as if indulging Draco a silly whim. 

Draco’s eyebrows pulled together in annoyance for a moment. “Yes, I have something to tell you.”

Brandon said nothing to this. Usually, Draco appreciated his ability to patiently wait rather than pressing Draco for answers. Potter had never had such a gift for patience, always pushing and asking questions before Draco could gather his thoughts. But, at the moment, Draco would have appreciated some prompting because he couldn’t seem to push the words out of his mouth. He looked at Bran who looked right back.

“I’ve been ill,” he finally manage.

“Have you gone to St. Mungo’s?” Bran asked, concern erasing his smile.

“Yes, yes. There is nothing actually wrong with me. I…” he took a deep sip from his cuppa disregarding the burning sensation on his tongue. “I’m pregnant” he spat out, looking at his cup after he swallowed.

When ten seconds of silence passed, he finally raised his eyes to look at the blond man across the table. “I was not aware that you were on fertility treatments,” Bran carefully said a moment later.

“I’m not. I…apparently I have a functioning womb and have no need for the treatment.” Silence. Draco’s long fingers begun tapping on the rim of his cuppa rhythmically trying to relieve some of his tension through the action. Draco saw the waiter approach them and quickly shook his head chasing the man away. Despite the awkwardness, he did not want the discussion interrupted.                

“Brandon, I…What do you think about being a father?” This was the crux of the matter after all. This was what made Draco worry. It was one thing to have a lover but a child?

“I had not really considered it” Brandon responded. “Honestly, it had not seemed like a possibility” he added.

“I know what you mean.” After all, Draco himself had been comfortable with unprotected sex because he believed this very situation was _not_ possible, goes to show how much he knows.

“Maybe, maybe we are not ready?” Draco asked, his throat constricting. Brandon’s eyes shot to his. They can still turn cold, Draco thought.

“Maybe not,” Brandon said. Draco tried to find his tongue again to respond.

“Abortion” he finally manage, whispering despite the presence of the _Muffliato_.

“I could still do it.” But if it got out… “Aborting a pure blood child…” Draco did not need to finish the thought, Brandon understood perfectly. Purebloods, above all, valued the procreation of more purebloods. Aborting, and having it become common knowledge, was much more scandalous than producing a child out of wedlock. Since the war, more than ever, purebloods were trying to replenish their numbers. Too many dead, too many jailed, too many fleeing to the Continent. Children had become more precious than ever before.

Brandon was looking at him as if Draco had missed something. “It might not be,” he said evenly. “A pureblood child, that is. It might not be. It could be Potter’s,” he clarified. At that point, Draco felt as if the world had tilted because he had not considered…

“How far along are you?”

“Eight maybe nine weeks” he breathed out.

“It could be Potter’s” Brandon stated. After all, Draco and Potter had been living together, it was not unreasonable to say that it could be Potter’s.

“It’s not Potter’s” Draco denied.

“How can you know? Had you two stopped—”

“No, we still did. But…It’s not Potter’s.” He insisted. “If Potter and I could have…We were together for years Brandon!” Draco exclaimed. “I would have gotten pregnant years ago. I didn’t. Not until you and I” he concluded, effectively convincing himself.

Brandon nodded as if accepting this but then added, “I would still feel better if we determined that it is mine.”

“What?”

“I would…It’s important that we determine that it’s mine, _ours_ ” Brandon restated.

“It’s too early for that kind of testing. I would have to wait at least another month…You would have to come to St. Mungo’s with me—”

“No.” Brandon quickly interrupted him. “The newspapers would have a field day if we walked into St. Mungo’s to perform a paternity test.”

“You want me ask Potter?” Draco said shocked.

“Considering how recent the breakup is, it would be best” Brandon agreed.

“He doesn’t want me to contact him.” Draco reminded Brandon. Draco really wanted to uphold that promise to Potter since he had no desire to see the Auror either.

“These are extenuating circumstances,” Brandon reasoned.

Draco thought Brandon was so comfortable with approaching Potter because he would not be the one doing it. He had also not seen Draco’s face before Pansy got him to hospital. On the other hand, Bran did have a point. The press would massacre them if it came out that they had been having an affair while Draco was with Potter. Sure there were whispers but no concrete evidence. Through the years, Potter had also learned how to avoid headlines. Potter was discrete as all hell, so he could arrange for Draco to get tested without it reaching the _Prophet._ Plus, when it became common knowledge that he and Bran were expecting, abortion would become an impossibility, one did not abort a pureblood child publicly. His father would probably disown him if he did it.

“I will send him an owl, I suppose.” Brandon nodded his agreement.

“If it’s Potter’s, would abortion be an option?” he asked Draco after a few minutes. Draco took another sip from his now cold tea, and silence enveloped them again.


	6. Waiting for the words

Draco sits before his small writing desk, in his lab, staring at the blank parchment before him. He had returned well over an hour ago from St. Mungo’s. Lovegood had finally let him go after having performed test after test. He returned directly to his lab, skipping the date he had with Bran.

He was supposed to meet him an hour ago. But here he sits. “Bran, it’s not yours.” Or something to that effect is what he has been trying to write. He picks up his quill and scribbles “It’s Potter’s.” He quickly balls the paper and throws it to the floor. “We need to talk,” he tries. He’ll know as soon as he reads it that it’s not his, he thinks, and throws that one away too. If he thinks about this rationally, Draco tells himself, Bran has probably already guessed what the result of the paternity test was. If the result had been what Draco wanted, he would have met Bran at the café. So, he knows, Draco concludes. He gets up and thinks of Bran’s office, concentrating on the reception room where the secretary sits, and apparates.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Elena says as soon as he appears before her.

“Is he in?” He asks her. She nods, her dark curls waiving around her face, and indicates Bran’s door with a welcoming gesture. It takes him a second longer than necessary to move, and she frowns but then he quickly walks towards the main office. He knocks but does not wait for a response before letting himself in.

“You missed our appointment,” Brandon greets Draco.

“It took much longer than I expected.” He excuses and sees the relief in Bran.

“So…?” Bran questions as he moves around his desk to make his way to Draco.

“Potter’s,” Draco whispers. It’s like he shouted it. Bran stops midway and looks confused. He had not guessed then; Draco amends his conclusion.

“Potter’s.” He repeats Draco’s words. “I see.” He adds.

Draco looks at him. At the blue eyes, the straight nose, the high cheekbones that rival his own, and has the absurd and simultaneously painful thought that they could have made a beautiful child together.

“Apparently, using Asphodel in my brewing and inhaling the fumes had acted as a contraceptive for years.” He explains. “That’s why I had not become pregnant before now,” he finishes disheartedly.

Brandon nods in understanding. He knows potions well and quickly reasons how Asphodel had had that effect. An effect which Draco had not considered when he chose the plant to experiment with. It had not seemed relevant because he had not thought that he could get pregnant in any case without fertility potions.

“What about…” Bran does not finish the sentence, but Draco does for him, “abortion.”

“I spoke to Lovegood about it.” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “She says that, although there are no outward signs, my birthing canal has begun forming internally. The procedure becomes more dangerous once the pregnancy reaches this stage.”

This had been one of his fears. Bran wanted the paternity test, which meant Draco had to wait until he entered his third month of gestation at which point a paternity test could be performed. Then Potter was so obstinate about not replying to Draco’s owls and refusing to meet with him that it had taken almost three weeks before Draco managed to corner him. Now, he was entering his second trimester and the canal had begun forming.

“What are the risks?” Bran asks coming slightly closer. “Would your life be endangered?”

“No, nothing like that.” Draco says with a slight smile of appreciation for the concern in his lover’s eyes. However, the smile quickly vanishes as he remembers his discussion with Lovegood and explains.

“My magic right now is very sensitive to any and all external magic because it is essentially creating something that will change my internal structure permanently. Intervening at this point could make it so that the canal ends up malformed.” He looks Bran in the eyes before delivering the final part of the explanation. “If it develops badly it would impact my womb as well. This means that I would not be able to carry a pregnancy to term nor conceive again, ever.”

“You would be sterile.” Bran states. “In this particular way, yes.” Draco clarifies. Bran moves and takes him into his arms. Draco feels the fear that has been chocking him since he heard he carried Potter’s child ease, replaced by a feeling of acceptance.

“What about your semen? Could you impregnate another if this happens?” Draco pulls his head from Bran’s throat to look him in the eyes again. “If the procedure resulted in malformation, I would have a slight chance of being able to impregnate someone else, around five percent.”

“That low?” Bran asks surprised.

“Yes, malformation tends to affect all the reproductive organs when it occurs.” Draco finishes, turning his face back into the crook of Bran’s neck and wrapping his arms around the strong back.

“What is the probability that there would be malformation if you aborted right now?” He hears Bran say. With a sigh, he moves out of the other man’s arms and puts a little distance between them.

“It’s a sixty-forty chance. I have a sixty percent probability of coming out of this alright if I do it within the next three days. The odds get less favorable the longer I wait. But, there is still a forty percent chance that I might not come out of it right.”

Bran moves to hug him again and Draco lets him. “You’ll be fine.” Bran whispers into the fine blond hair against his temple, and Draco freezes. He tries to maintain his regular breathing pattern as he lets the implication sink in. Bran expects him to go through with it. No, not just expects it, he thinks Draco has already accepted that he should abort— believes that Draco has already made arrangements. _Because it’s Potter’s and not his_.

“When do you have the appointment? I’ll clear my schedule and come with you.” Bran continues, reinforcing Draco’s conclusion. Draco moves out of his arms again but does not step back. He stares intently at the man before him. He maintains their closeness, feeling the other’s heat, smelling his aftershave, drinking him in. This man, _this man_ , he thinks desperately. _I love this man_. Until now, it had not occurred to Draco that Brandon might not love him back. He can almost feel his heart crack before he says it: “I’m not aborting.”

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

“Damn it. Stupid shite of a house!” Harry yells as another zap of malevolent magic runs through him like an electric current when he tries to enter the library. The room had sealed itself for no apparent reason. He was _renovating_ , in his own special way.

He had Reductoed most of the walls on the main level indiscriminately, taking out what he suspected were the load barring walls. If Grimmauld were not a magical house, it would have dropped on his head by now; he was sure. The destruction, at least, had taken out the majority of the rats, and the rest were good for target practice. The renovation was not going so well, not that making the house livable was the point of any of this. He had been living, existing, within the admittedly shaky walls of Grimmauld for two months and had yet to get Bill in, which as Ron had pointed out, is a necessity. The house was a deathtrap even before he’d blown a hole in the dinning-room floor right into the basement. He’d already had to go into St. Mungo’s spell damage ward, and he can’t even enter half the rooms which keep themselves locked up. It seemed Dumbledore and other Order members had placed protection and containment spells all over Grimmauld, which had made the place livable before. The casters being dead, the spells had deteriorated or completely unraveled, leaving Harry to deal with his homicidal home.

He should really have begun by getting Bill in to clear out the place, he thinks. However, he had not bothered to do anything to the house until last week. He had been too busy at the Ministry and the clubs after. He had spent the last two months either drunk or with the mother of all hangovers pounding in his head, because he didn’t have any hangover potions. _Malfoy_ used to brew them, so Harry never bought any. Two months after the breakup, he still forgot that he did not have a potions brewer for a boyfriend anymore. Hermione insists that he needs to go out and interact with the men he met. He interacted, there was not much talking, but still— he was moving on. “In the most self-destructive manner possible,” he can almost hear Hermione huff.

Harry might even agree with her. The last two months were a blur of hand jobs and blow jobs in dark back rooms and bathroom stalls, with the occasional fucking in said stall or some guy’s flat— never with the same guy and _never_ with wizards. After all, he is not self-destructive enough to give the Prophet the opportunity of “exclusive interviews” with his one-night stands. And then, _Malfoy_ cornered him in Diagon a week ago, grabbing Harry’s arm so that he couldn’t apparate without taking the git with him and talking fast about pregnancies and tests and unanswered owls.

Harry pulls back and gives the door a kick, ignoring the magic’s bite. “Open up! You bloody fuck. Open!” He growls at the door. He really does not want to blow the doors up; they are nice hand carved doors, but he is losing his patience. He should be out right now, pulling some. But even pulling isn’t enough at this point. He is too angry and doesn’t want to lose control around anyone else, especially some unsuspecting muggle. He gives up on the door and glides down on what's left of the opposite wall until he is sitting in the ruble, “positive match” running over and over in his head.

Malfoy is pregnant and he, Harry, has something to do with it. He doesn’t _want_ to have anything to do with it or with Malfoy, but “positive match,” so there. A bitter smile curves his lips when he imagines Malfoy telling his lover that it was Harry who got him up the duff. There is some satisfaction in that at least, but not nearly enough to balance out the outrage of being permanently connected to Malfoy this way. Then again, they might not stay connected. Malfoy will probably abort. Harry cannot imagine that Malfoy will birth a Potter bastard marring his future pristine pureblood family with Harry’s blood. “No, he’ll be rid of it within the week.” Harry mumbles scratching at his temple with filth encrusted fingernails.

It shouldn’t annoy him, and it _doesn’t_. He really doesn’t want a kid with his ex. It’s just that Harry knows Malfoy would have had the brat if it’d turned out it was Davis’s. He would probably had been ecstatic if it had been Davis’s, getting a head start on popping some pureblood babies and all that. He would probably be planning the wedding and the baby shower simultaneously if it had been Davis’s. But, because it’s Harry’s, Malfoy will be planning a discreet abortion instead. Somewhere, inside where Harry doesn't want to look, that hurts a bit.

He should be reasonable about this. He did not want a child with the man, so Malfoy aborting was the best outcome. He wanted to be reasonable, but he was so tired of pretending to be reasonable— it didn’t even convince anyone.

“People break up, Harry.” Hermione had told him softly after the first month while they sat on her couch. “Personal problems cannot affect your performance here Potter. You are putting lives at risk.” Robards had told him before pulling him off fieldwork until he: “put his head on right again.” “The fucker ain’t worth it mate!” Ron yelled when he had accompanied Harry to the pub to get drunk with him in moral support. “There are hundreds of men hotter and more worthy of you Harry,” Ginny had said with a smile, squeezing his hand on the Sunday dinner at the Burrow. “You’ll pull through love. Give it time.” Molly had told him and then she’d stuffed him with food. Seamus seems to be the only one that approves of Harry’s method. “Fuck him out of your system, man! Fuck until you can’t remember his name, I tell you!” He’d yelled from his seat across from Ron at the pub. Which would be fine and dandy, if Harry had forgotten Malfoy’s name. Instead, he forgot the names of the blokes he fucked before he even came. If he asked for names that is. He did not always make it to introductions before the fucking happened, and after it seemed kind of pointless.

What Harry wanted to know was how they all knew that _Malfoy_ had left _him_ and not the other way around. He snorts at the thought. Even though he had refused to explain what caused the breakup, he was living in a rat infested, black magic infused, shit hole, passing out drunk every night. Not exactly the look of someone healthy who chose to move on. No, it was obvious to anyone that looked that he had not been the one to walk away. Harry had been the one left behind.

How was he suppose to move on now? He needed to speak to Malfoy, to find out what he was going to do about the pregnancy, but he really did not want to. “Fuck it,” he says getting off the floor and moving towards the landing. He is done renovating for the day.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Draco sits himself before the breakfast table. He shares a small smile with his mother and notes that she looks relaxed and beautiful today. Nothing like what she looks on the days when she suffers an episode.

“Good morning.” A small nod towards Lucius is the only concession he makes to include the man in his greeting.

“Draco you must have Pansy come by again. I wanted to speak with her, Swift’s Summer collection will be revealed next week.” His mother tells him.

“I will let her know mother. Although, I’m sure she knows all about the affair already.” He regrets saying it when her expression falls, these days she was the last to find out about these events. She has been unable to go out much, and it is not pleasant to be reminded that others had to indulge her because of her weakness. Narcissa Malfoy was a proud woman after all.

Draco wants to kick himself for being so callus. “I’m sure she’ll love to visit, mother.” He offers as apology and she gives him an accepting smile that does not reach her eyes. “Maybe we can have Ms Parkinson for tea tomorrow, Dear.” Lucius says, and Draco remembers why he loves his father. Well, most days, loves his father.

“Mr. Davis should also come. Invite him Draco.” And that is why he hates his father.

“Brandon has an appointment with his ingredient providers tomorrow. I’m sorry mother, maybe some other time.” He says. Of course, Bran has no such appointment, or if he does Draco wouldn’t know about it. They had not communicated in three days. Not after Draco had visited Bran’s office to announce that he is not terminating the pregnancy. After waiting for Bran to say something, which he did not, Draco had left and no owls had arrived for him, nor had he sent any owls out since.

Lucius’s sharp eyes focus on him, probably reading the tension of his muscles. “The day after then.” He insists, making Draco want to scream. His father never could leave well enough alone. In that respect, he is like Potter, always insisting, always demanding.

Lucius has no right. After his choices, after his mistakes, he has no right to judge and punish but that is exactly what he intends to do. What he will do once Draco explains the situation.

“Brandon will not be able to attend the Manor for tea tomorrow or the day after or at any other time in the future until…” he can’t think of how to finish the sentence. “Until…” his father repeats.

“We are having some difficulties which need to be resolved.” The occupants of the table look at him expectantly. He had forgotten this. When he thought of his parents the past three years, full of regret, guilt, and missing them, he had forgotten about their invasive curiosity about anything and everything that involved him. Now, he was living under their roof again and is expected to satisfy said curiosity.

He wants to be angry about it, but he already knows he has to tell them. The three days he had in which to abort have come and gone and unless he wants to sterilize himself, he’ll be pregnant and showing soon. His father had already been giving him suspicious stares for days. Malfoys do not get pudgy for no reason after all.

“I am pregnant” he says very carefully, holding onto his father’s gaze as he says it.

“Oh, well. It is a bit sudden but…This is great news dear.” His mother intervenes clearly trying to defuse the situation.

“Whose is it?” Lucius asks and Narcissa closes her eyes as if waiting for a blow. 

“Mr. Davis’s—” she attempts.

“No, Davis would be _attending_ tea if it were, now wouldn’t he.” Lucius states and waits for Draco to respond. 

“Potter’s.” Is all Draco says and the chair screeches as Lucius jumps out of his seat.

“Lucius.” Draco hears his mother plead but he does not look at her, his eyes are still glued to his father’s.

“You will not.” Lucius tells him. “Do you understand me? You will _not_ birth your Potter bastard—”

“Lucius!” His mother’s voice says with force as she also leaves her seat. Draco still looks steadily at Lucius not moving to stand.

“You will get that thing taken care of.” the older Malfoy finishes, standing straight, gesturing towards his son’s midsection, and looking at him with grey eyes, identical to Draco’s.

“I cannot abort.”

“You will.”

“I will not.” There was a moment of silence. They have reached an impasse and neither would cede.

“Then, you will leave my house.”


	7. Waiting Outside

_Three years ago…_  

“Hello, Malfoy,” he heard as the seat across from him was pulled out and then Potter was sitting there.

“What are you doing here Potter?” He asked, letting his book drop on the table.

“Nothing, just saw you sitting. Thought I’d say hello.”

“You’ve said it,” he replied.

“You could say it back. It’s customary.” Potter told him, obviously trying to contain his mirth. What had him so chirpy Draco could not begin to guess.

“Hello, Potter. Now, leave.”

“Why so aggressive Malfoy?” Potter asked with a huff of amusement, putting his elbows on the table.

“This is my natural behaviour whilst in your presence,” he replied.

“Not always.” Potter said, looking into his eyes. Draco could feel it happening but he couldn’t stop the blush from rising to his cheeks because Potter was right. Three weeks ago, Draco had been positively _friendly_ and _accommodating_. Merlin, I did not just think that, he thought at himself scandalized.

“Go out with me.” Potter said suddenly.

“No.” He responded immediately, scowling.

“Go out with me” Potter said again with a smile.

“No.”

“Go out with me.”

“I already told you, no. So, you should stop asking.” Draco told him exasperated.

“I’m not asking. And if I insist you might change your mind. Go out with me.” He responded with a ruggish smile.

“What would this outing entail?” He asked just to have Potter stop repeating himself.

“Food, maybe dancing, certainly fucking.” He said and Draco blushed again.

“You are only asking because you want into my pants.” He accused.

“And you want me there. So, go out with me.” Draco really wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But, that would really be a waste because, honestly, he did want Potter in his pants.

“Fine.”

“Great! Tomorrow? Around six?” Potter said.

“Fine. But I don’t approve of muggle hotels Potter.” He had to make some protest at least.

“So, you are saying we’ll need a hotel.” Potter leers at him.

“I’m not going out with you to eat at some sub-par restaurant, and it is certainly not because I admire your horrendous dance moves, so you do the math.” He drawled. And Potter laughed. Full blown laughter that Draco had never seen nor heard before. Potter’s voice was heavier now than it had been when he was a teenager and his laughter sounded warm, strong, sexy.

“No muggle hotels.” He agreed after, still chuckling.

“And not your hovel, either!” Draco quickly added.

“Of course not.” Then, “I’ve go a new place,” he added as an afterthought.

“A new place?” Draco asked suspiciously.

“Sure, well not yet. But I will…Actually, why don’t you help me pick it?”

“What?”

“Tomorrow, help me choose a place.”

“Why would I want to do that?” He asked completely confused.

“Cause that way you will be sure it is to your standards. You are the most fastidious git I know. If it passes your inspection, no one else will find anything to complain about.”

“You want me to help you choose a flat you can bring your fuck toys to?” Draco asked amused. This was bizarre. However, for some reason, he thought it was very funny.

“Exactly. Something I can bring guys over to and won’t have them running right out again.” Potter said smiling.

“Fine, have a list of places tomorrow and I’ll meet you at noon.”

“Perfect” Potter answered as he got up again.

“I won’t choose something cheap Potter. I’m high maintenance,” he warned the brunet.

“Really? I’d never have guessed.” Potter replied, raising an eyebrow. Wanker, Draco thought but couldn’t stop the smile that bloomed on his face. 

The next day, they saw six properties all in exclusive neighborhoods until Draco claimed property number two with the open space living and dinning the best of them all. Harry paid an exorbitant amount of money for it. The sale was finalized three days later. The same night Potter was given the key, he brought Draco over for a visit and they fucked on a conjured mattress in the middle of the living room. Five months later Draco moved in.  

Harry never did bring any fuck toys to the apartment. Three years later, he sold it at a loss after throwing Draco out.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

“I wish I could help you.” Pansy says quietly to Draco, who stands by the window in the Manor’s receiving parlor.

“I understand” he replies, looking out the window before turning to her. “Mother’s getting better and Lucius wants me out of here now that I've spoken to her.”

The past two days had been a nightmare. After the hellish breakfast debacle, his father had retired to his study, Narcissa following him. Before Draco had gathered himself, he heard the shouts. He run toward the study only to see Lucius running towards the fireplace calling for a Healer. Narcissa had suffered an episode that had left her unconscious for over thirteen hours. For some time they feared she might not wake up.

“You will stay until she awakens. You will reassure her, and when she is calm, you will remove yourself from this residence.” Lucius told him as they both stood watch at the bedside of the unconscious woman they both loved enough to stay in each other’s company as they silently prayed for her recovery. Draco had not protested, there was no point. His father would not allow him to stay as long as he insisted on his course and Draco could not, would not, back down. There were only so many concessions one could make before breaking. Draco instinctively knew that if he conceded in this, he would break. Lucius and Brandon, the people who asked this of him, could not possibly love him, that much had become abundantly clear to him.  

He had spoken to his father silently explaining the risks. “The end of our line,” he had said quietly. “Is that what you want father?” He had hoped. Draco had hoped that for once in the miserable years that had followed his childhood his father would not disappoint him.  

“I do not want to see the Malfoy bloodline gone nor our name die. But, I prefer it to the alternative.” And simple as that, Draco saw the man he had idolized as a child become even smaller than he had during the war. 

So, he had written to Brandon.

His lover’s reply:  _I am sorry Draco, I wish I could accept this but I cannot. I am sorry,_

 _B.D._  

Simple as that, another idol had fallen.

Draco did not bother replying. 

“You need to speak to him.” Pansy is saying. Draco stares at her, hoping she might say something else. Hoping she would offer him her home even if she couldn’t. Pansy’s family would never accept him in their home. In any case, Draco’s problems were not hers to solve, so he did not ask and she did not offer.  

“I can’t go to Potter.”

“Of course you can. This is his child, there’s medical confirmation after all.”

“What am I supposed to say Pansy?” He yells throwing his arms out in exasperation. “It didn’t work out with my other lover, take me back? Is that what I’m supposed to say? Or maybe: My father threw me out again, can you give me a place to stay _again_? Feed me again? Clothe me again? Is that what I should say?!” He looks at her, waiting for an answer.

“You made a mistake—” Pansy starts to say.

“ _Mistake_ is when you forget an anniversary. When you cheat for three months it’s a bit more complicated” he says dropping into an armchair.

“This is not about that.” Pansy says, with a ‘water under the bridge’ air. When he just looks at her disgusted, she stops. “What are you going to do then? Lucius wants you out by tomorrow, you’ve got no money, nowhere to go. What do _you_ think you should do? Where do you plan to go?”

“To Potter’s,” he says with the air that suggests he would prefer Azkaban.

“He won’t throw you out, not now that you are pregnant.” She consoles him.

“I know,” he says closing his eyes. “That’s what makes it so terrible, Pansy.” That’s what made it unpalatable. Draco had never enjoyed the taste of self-loathing, less so when paired with shame and humiliation.  

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Harry freezes after seeing who has been persistently knocking on his door at the ungodly hour of seven in the bloody morning on a Saturday. Malfoy stands before him. He looks sick, pale, his cheekbones more pronounced than usual, and his expression…He looks as if someone had died.  

“It took me almost an hour to remember the coordinates to this place.” He offers as a greeting.

Harry’s eyes narrow. “What do you want?”

“Well… we’ve had this conversation before Ha— Potter” he quickly amends.

“What?” Harry asks still addled from sleep and all the alcohol of last night.

Draco looks even more pained than before. “Three years ago, we had a conversation about my father not approving and such rot.” And Harry understands, and he wants to punch Malfoy again. The urge is so intense, he chants “he’s pregnant” in his head.

“You are not serious” the brunet says.

“I really wish I wasn’t” Draco replies. Harry slams the door in his face. Five minutes later he hears the knocking again. He pulls the door open so hard with his magic it comes unhinged.

“Go to your fucking boyfriend’s Malfoy. Ain’t that your way? The guy that fucks you should house you.” Harry tells him.

“Potter, I’ve got nowhere else to go.” It kills him to say it, Harry knows because he had that expression on his face, the: I’ve been puking slugs or seen Weasley eating face. Harry really wants to tell him no, but fuck he can’t help being fucking curious.

“Did Davis think we never fucked after you got together or something? Are you tainted by my sperm now?” He asked spitefully.

“Apparently, yes. But he’ll take me back if I abort. Actually, both he and Father will take me back if I abort.” Draco says without inflection.

They wanted him to abort, and Malfoy had said no? Harry stares at the blond ten full seconds before moving to the side to let him walk inside.

“Thank you—” Malfoy starts but loses his words. Harry almost smiles at the look on Malfoy's face when he finally looks at the interior of the house.

“Bloody hell, was there a raid or something?” Wide eyes go wider when a rat scurries away, disappearing behind a pile of bricks, mortar, and dirt on the corner of what could be called the receiving parlor, if one had imagination.

“I’m _renovating._ ” He explains crossing his arms against his chest. “Do you have a problem with it?” Malfoy’s eyes narrow, his lips pinch and Harry waits for it. Waits for the “Obviously I do, you git!” Because then he can tell him to get the hell out of his house. Harry is ready for the shouting, the cursing, and Malfoy getting out, leaving him in peace.

Malfoy does not give him the satisfaction. His face relaxes, the glint in his eyes goes out. “It’s your house. Where will I sleep?”

Harry doesn’t answer. He is so angry with Malfoy he wants to blow the rest of Grimmauld to smithereens and the fucker won’t give him the satisfaction of an argument.

“You are seriously going to say?”

“What part of ‘nowhere else to go’ was unclear?”

“Don’t be a smart arse Malfoy, my patience for you shenanigans has been reduced drastically.”

“I would not be here if there was anywhere else. I really, truly, have no other option.”

“Nice to know I was the _very last_ option.”

“Don’t act offended, Potter. You don’t want me here either.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Where am I sleeping?” Draco repeats. More than anything he wants to get away from Potter and the combat zone that is the first floor. All he can do is pray that the second level has been spared.

“Upstairs. Choose a room and ward it unless you want some rats for company.” Malfoy is moving before Harry is done speaking, up the stairs and out of sight. Harry stares at the landing, no apology, no excuses, nothing. As always, Draco had given him nothing. 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 _Two and a half years ago…_

Draco had been living with Potter for a month before he attempted visiting the Manor again. He apparated to Wiltshire and now stood before the gates because the bloody wards would not let him through. He was standing outside, like a dog, the light mist making his clothes stick to him and his hair lie limply, staring at a building he hated. He felt so _pathetic_.  

He _hated_ the Manor. While inside, he could never relax. He hated it when they dinned in the grand dining hall. He couldn’t enter the room without remembering Nagini’s distended skin as it digested its human meal. He could not walk by the ball room without hearing screams, or walk into his father’s office without a sense of dread, expecting Voldemort to still be there. Even strolling in the gardens was too much, the scent of burning bodies seemed to hide behind the scent of English roses. He truly hated the place. 

But his mother was in there. He had not spoken to her for a month and Pansy had told him that Narcissa had cancelled an appointment with her mother because of a sudden inconvenience. Draco knew inconvenience meant an episode. How bad? Was she alright now? What was happening?! 

He wished he could speak with her or even with his father. If only Lucius had been less intransigent. Draco wasn’t even sure how things had escalated to the point that they had. So he was gay. So what? It wasn’t that uncommon, and it did not impede him from marrying, having children, continuing the Malfoy name. His father would not hear of it. When Potter’s name came up all hell broke loose. Draco had been thrown out. He had been forced out by the wards and had stood staring at the gates then as well.

Numbly, he had apparated to Potter’s apartment. Potter found him there when he returned from the Ministry late in the afternoon.  

“He threw me out.” Draco told him as if trying to make sense of the words himself. Potter had been understanding and indignant. He told him to stay at the flat as long as he wanted. Draco didn’t say much. Here was this stranger being indignant on his behalf, and all Draco could do was bite his tongue so as not to defend his father from Potter’s accusations. Even though Potter was _right_. Lucius had thrown him out knowing he had no resources and Draco was _his son_ and the man had not cared. But hearing Potter say it seemed somehow worse that having experienced it. How could that be? 

Now his mother was ill and he wasn’t allowed to see her. So here he was, standing before the gates, staring at the house he hated, wanting nothing more in the world than to be allowed inside again.


	8. Waiting for the Explosion

Draco moves his wand disinterestedly as he packs his ingredients into the bottomless box he brought with him from Grimmauld Place. He is glad to get out, the house is not large enough for him and Potter. He is not sure if London is large enough, but needs must. They do their best to avoid one another, Draco spending most of his time locked in the room he selected, the one furthest from Potter’s, and Potter is usually destroying something or other downstairs when he is in, which is rare. He flooed to the Ministry before Draco woke up and usually was gone all day. On weekends, he did not return until daybreak. Draco, slight sleeper that he is, inevitably heard him stumbling around in the dark as Potter passed his door on the way to his own room. 

On the rare occasion when communication was necessary, the calmness was so obviously forced on both sides that Draco is dreading the moment when either will brakes. When Potter brakes. Draco cannot afford to explode, but Potter has no such restrictions. Potter is like an over-boiled potion, he is either going to overflow or explode. Draco is not looking forward to it.  

To top off the lovely two weeks he’d been having, his landlord sent him an owl this morning indicating that rent was overdue by a week now, and if he did not intent to pay to “please vacate the premises.” Well, Draco added the _please_ to the sentence _._

With everything else going on, he had forgotten about his lab and his rent. When he was with Potter, _before_ , Potter had located the place and rented it for Draco to work in as there was no space in the flat. After their breakup, Draco had returned to the Manor and his father had reinstated his access to the Malfoy vaults so paying the rent had been no inconvenience; although, he had been considering leaving the place anyway and using the lab in the Manor. It was better equipped, Severus had designed the space himself when Draco was still a child. Now, however, he had no vaults to speak of and the Chudley Cannons would have to win the Quidditch world cup before he approached Potter for help.

So, he came in early in the morning to clear out. What he will do after he has no idea. He could try commandeering another bedroom or something to work in. He could not do much brewing, the ingredients that were safe for him to use right now were very limited. But he had to do _something,_ or he’ll end up blowing walls along with Potter or catatonic, it was a toss between the two at this point.  

He moves around the room when everything is packed, making sure he did not miss anything. Maybe Potter would be amendable to allowing Draco one more space in… the _home._ Draco really can’t call it that without grimacing. The place was disgusting and felt _weird._ He had not tried looking around since his first priority had been avoiding Potter, but he had a strong sense that there was something wrong with the place, beyond Potter’s renovation attempts. It felt wrong.  

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

When Draco walks into Grimmauld again in the late morning, he can hear Potter doing something in the back of the house, the kitchen he guesses. It’s the only space in the ground floor he had not attacked, and Draco hopes it remains that way because he needs to eat. He is just glad Potter had decided to clean the old kitchen and buy food without Draco having to ask, apparently Potter did not take meals in the house. Pregnant or not, it would probably have taken him starving before he went to Potter begging for sustenance. At least the man had not forced Draco to that point.

He moves further in, almost tripping over all the shit on the floor, looking for a door to shove the box he brought with him from the lab through before making his way quickly back to his room. He sees the mahogany hand carved double doors and goes for them, holding the box with one hand and grasping the handle with the other.The shock is so sudden and so strong he drops the box with all his precious ingredients, feeling sick to his stomach and weak kneed. “Bloody hell” he whizzes wrapping his arms around his middle while doubling over. 

Potter is in front of him a minute later when Draco finally manages to straighten again a burning sensation still irritating his palm. “What happened?”

“The fuck’s in this house, Potter?!” Draco demands and Potter’s eyes narrow.    

“What do you mean?” He says taking an obstinate posture.

“I am not in the mood for your shenanigans Potter. That bloody door almost burned through my bloody palm!”

“It’s not that bad, don’t exaggerate. It’s just some residual dark magic, from your dear Great-aunt’s time.” Draco’s body seizes.

“Re— Residual _Dark_ Magic” he repeats. “How much is there?”

“Dunno”

“How Much!” Draco screams at him looking deranged.

“A lot of it. What’s it to you? Thought you’d feel right at home with it.”

“You stupid, fucking WANKER!”

“Watch your mouth Malfoy!”

“Or what?! Huh—what? Will you hit me again?!” Potter doesn’t say anything to that. He looks away for a moment and when he looks back his eyes land on Draco’s chin instead of his eyes.

“You are a stupid fucker Potter” Draco continues acidly through labored breaths.

“What is your fucking problem? If you don’t like it, leave!” Potter yells throwing his arms wide open. Draco moves before he realizes he is moving. He pulls his arm back and the punch lands squarely on Potter’s face, just below his nose and the force snaps his head back. Potter’s large hand shoots out and quickly wraps his wrist in a crushing grip, but Draco is yelling already. “You fucking bastard! I’d been better in the fucking streets! You arsehole. You have me living in a house bleeding _Dark Magic_ ” his voice breaks.

“Do you have any idea what Dark Magic exposure does to a developing core you fucking piece of shit?!” and he is almost wailing.  Harry pales and his grip around the wrist slackens enough that Malfoy pulls his hand away as if touching Harry is as bad as touching the door behind him.

“What—”

“I’ve been in here two weeks! Two fucking weeks breathing the air and feeling it and not knowing what the hell it was…” Malfoy is saying, and Harry does not think he is talking to him anymore.

“Oh, Merlin. Oh, Merlin” he is saying and he is _crying_. Harry hasn’t seen Malfoy cry since sixth year. Malfoy didn't even cry when his parents threw him out years ago.

“Malfoy—”

“It’s going to be born sick. You piece of shit!” He yells again concentrating on Harry once more. His eyes are red rimmed his face blushing with anger.

“Dark Magic exposure is _killing_ my mother!” he screams, and Harry feels the bile rising up his esophagus because Draco had hated talking about what’s wrong with Narcissa Malfoy, but he had mentioned something about over-exposure.

“And now it will be the same for the kid.” He says choking on a sob. “Malfoy, calm down—” He might as well be speaking to a statue. Malfoy is not paying him any attention any longer.

“It’s gonna be born sick and it’s gonna die. Oh, god, it’s going to be born sick and die,” and he can’t talk any longer because he is hyperventilating. Malfoy’s knees give out on him and Harry barely catches him before he crashes face first on the floor.

“Malfoy! Malfoy! Draco!” 

Draco is dying. He is sure of it. The Dark magic is killing him. It has infected him. He can feel it running through him, _poisoning_ him. His chest hurts, and he can’t breath, he is suffocating, his eyes are loosing focus, his eyeballs hurt from the pressure, and he is dying. “Draco!” He hears but can’t respond, “no air” he wants to scream “help, I'm dying!” His head has begun pounding so fiercely he wants to vomit. Suddenly, he feels even worse, his whole body compressing. It stops as soon as it begun, but Draco can’t help it, as soon as he feels solid ground again he sicks up.

Then there are hands on him, pulling, then pushing, then he’s lying down but still moving, rolling, and he _can’t_ _breathe_! There are hands on his face, his mouth is opened with a spell, and then he is chocking on something “Mr. Malfoy, you need to swallow!” Someone says to him. He chocks. “Draco, please swallow.” He hears and he wants to. He wants to stop chocking; he needs to breathe. Then there is a spell and his throat muscles relax. The liquid glides down his throat. He can breathe again and everything goes dark.    

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 _Two years ago…_

“Draco” Potter half mumbled in his sleep as Draco slithered his way down his body, platting kisses as he went. He moved slowly, keeping his ministrations light. Draco’s head soon disappeared beneath the covers. He kissed Potter’s pectorals, licking down the sharp v towards the groin and then rising up to dip his tongue in the belly bottom before moving downward again.

He pushed the covers off as he reached his destination. The cool air felt good on his skin after the heat of the covers that had cocooned him. “Draco,” he heard again, but in a sharper voice, signaling Potter’s wakefulness. “Hmm?” He replied, wrapping his long fingers around the base of the shaft before him.“What are you doing?” Potter asked with a smile when their eyes met. 

“Give you a clue,” Draco said before opening his mouth and swallowing as much as he possibly could. He was not so good at this yet, but he had gotten much better than before. He couldn’t go all the way to the root like Potter did to him, but Potter groaned as if he were dying, so Draco wasn't too worried about his technique. “Draco” he heard again, breathy this time, a sound that made him hot all over. He continued sucking, trying to breathe through his nose and playing with Potter's balls at the same time. “Draco!” Potter half shouted and Draco pulled away with a smirk.   

“Don’t you know any other words?” He said cheekily, grabbing his wand from the bedside table and swiftly straddling Potter. He conjured some lube, slowly reaching behind him, his eyes looking into the green orbs blown almost completely black. “You are so hot” Potter told him.

“Ah. You’ve recovered your rudimentary vocabulary, I see.”

“Fuck you.”

“In due time. Give me a minute” he laughed, scissoring himself. A moment later, he leaned down to give Potter a slow kiss, grabbing the shaft behind him. He positioned himself and when he leaned back Potter penetrated him. Draco slowly sunk down until he was fully seated with Potter inside him. His eyes closed at the sensation of fullness. He loved sex. He mourned the years he spent confused and missing such a feeling. He loved how Potter barely fit, always giving him that slight burning feeling at the first moment of penetration. He begun to move leisurely, enjoying the feeling of Potter’s hands caressing his thighs and running over his hips.  

The slow pace did not last. Soon his orgasm was coiling inside him. Potter’s hands were now bruisingly tight on his hips guiding him. “I…I can’t!” He said when Potter’s hand grabbed his shaft, the tight fist stroking him in rhythm with the movements of their coupling. “Gah!” He chocked before losing his balance and slapping his open palms against Potter’s chest to regain it. He could feel his walls begin to constrict around Potter; his breath stuttered. “Potter!” He groaned feeling each of the brunet’s upward thrusts against his prostate. “Potter! Potter!” He cried before coming. Potter groaned, and amidst his orgasm Draco felt the warmth pooling inside him that indicated the other had reached the pinnacle as well. 

His arms were ready to collapse, so he lay himself slowly on top of his lover, his ear right over Potter’s heart. “Now who lost their vocabulary…” he heard Potter say as he started shifting his fingers through Draco’s hair. “Shut up.” Draco told him enjoying the feeling of the fingers caressing his scowl.

“You are so prickly even after orgasm.” Potter said and Draco felt him chuckle.

“Shut up, Potter.” He said again closing his eyes.

“You could try Harry.” Potter suggested running his hand down Draco’s spine, almost to the point where they were still connected.

“Can I now?” He replied turning to look at Potter’s eyes.

“I’d like it if you did.”

“Hmm.” Was all he bothered to say still looking at the man beneath him. Potter huffed in exasperation.

“Fine. Good morning, Draco.” He said, giving a small peck to Draco’s nose. Draco smiled at him.

“Good morning, Harry” he said and lay his head back over Harry’s heart.  


	9. Waiting for Apologies

“Harry?” Draco croaks. He cannot open his eyes and his throat feels like he swallowed a handful of sand. “Ha—Harry?” He whispers again. He remembers Harry and then…not much else.  “Draco, Harry is in another room being examined. How do you feel?” He finally opens his eyes to see Lovegood’s serene face floating over him. The room is too bright and he lets his eyelids drop again quickly. “What…where?” he tries.

“You are in St. Mungo’s. Harry brought you here this morning. It’s four thirty in the afternoon right now. You had a panic attack. Do you remember any of it?” Remember? He does now that the fog is lifting. The house, the shock when he grabbed the door handle.  

“Dark Magic..” he tries and coughs.

“Harry told us about it.” Lovegood says before pressing a cool glass of water to his lips. He takes a few sips and feels immensely better. “Calming drafts will make you thirsty” she tells him. He opens his eyes to look at her again.

“You examined me?” He asks when he is done drinking.

“Yes, you will be happy to know that you do not appear to have suffered any long-lasting damage from exposure. The shock you received to your hand does worry me a little, so you will be on some cleansing potions for the next three weeks. Just to make sure that the development of the fetus’s magical core continues at an acceptable rate.”

“There is no damage to it then?”

“Not that I have been able to see, but now you are awake we will conduct a full examination to make sure, alright? What worries me more is the panic attack you suffered, such stress is not good for either of you.” He nods. “It's never happened before,” he tells her, and she gives him a reassuring smile.

“You’ve been under a lot of pressure recently.” She tells him. Lovegood’s wand swishes across her face as she dispatches a calling signal. A moment later a Mediwizard comes in levitating a tray of potions, and Lovegood begins her tests. 

A few doors down in his own examination room Harry is being submitted to his final tests in a long, long, long list of test that the eager Healer decided were necessary.  

“Well, Mr. Potter sir!” Healer Clayton says, presenting him with a prescription note. “You have a very strong magical core, of course to be expected. If not, almost three months of exposure to unstable Dark magic would have certainly done a lot more damage than what you have suffered. You are very resilient, but it’s to be expected of course.” He says, smiling from ear to ear, and Harry wishes the man would hurry it up.  

“So, there was no damage?”

“Your core has been stressed from constantly repelling the influence of the residual Dark magic. You might also suffer mood swings and headaches mostly from the stress to your core. The potions prescribed will deal with that and you will be as good as new.”

“What about Malfoy?”

“I am afraid I cannot say. Healer Lovegood is taking his case. In any case, divulging information about another patient—”

“I am asking if…forget it” he finishes. He’ll ask Luna as soon as he gets out of here.  

Twenty minutes later, Harry knocks on the door to Malfoy’s room and enters without waiting for a reply. Malfoy is reclining against the raised bed with a book on his lap. He looks terrible. Gaunt, tired, sick, really sick.

“I flooed Bill Weasley,” Harry offers. Draco simply stares at him without reacting.

“He is a course breaker—”

“I know what Bill Weasley does, Potter. I did live with you for three years.”

“I’d rather we not talk about that” Harry says.

“Agreed.”

“He’ll have a crew in tomorrow morning. By the time they discharge you, the place will be completely remediated.”

“What makes you think I’ll return to live in that house?” Draco asks with narrowed eyes.

“Do you suddenly have another option?” Is Potter’s simple reply.

Draco hates him. He hates him because he is right. Draco has no other choice, no other home, no home at all. Even his lab is gone. He has no family, only one friend, no lab, and if he is honest, he never had a career. All he has is what he is carrying inside and suddenly he hates that he has to share it with Potter.

“Malfoy, I’m sorry about all this with the house. It is not my intention to harm you or the kid.” Potter states, and Draco hates him even more. Because Potter says he is sorry so easily, while Draco is chocking on all his _I’m sorry._

It’s so easy for Potter to relieve his guilt by asking for Draco’s forgiveness for doing something he did not even know he was doing. So easy for him to let go of the guilt while unintentionally making Draco’s share heavier. Draco wants the burden gone, but he cannot say he is sorry. He is not sure he _is_ sorry or what part he is sorrier about. What he does know is that he does not deserve to be forgiven. So, he does not ask for forgiveness; he is too afraid that being forgiven might feel worse than what he feels now.  

“I need to rest.” He tells Potter, picking up his book and pretending to read it. He does not turn to look as Potter walks out the door, leaving him alone with his demons.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 _One and a half years ago…_

Draco woke up every day at seven along with Harry. He had tea while Harry had coffee. They had breakfast together, they dressed together and then Harry flooed to the Ministry and Draco apparated to his lab. Draco had completed his Potions Mastery three years before. It had not been easy, finding a Master willing to apprentice him had been the hardest part. Master Willaby was not as respected as most. He had no notable contributions to the field of Potions to his name. He was not a _bad_ Potions Master, but he lacked imagination. His understanding of Potions was rigid, which was completely counterintuitive to Draco’s fluidity towards the subject. Willaby was not Draco’s first, nor second, nor third choice of Master, but Willaby was the only willing to train him, for an exorbitant amount of galleons of course. The man might not have had imagination, but he was practical, and the Malfoys were willing to pay good money.

So, his apprenticeship had not been what he would have hoped it to be. But, at least, Willaby had not tried stopping him from working on his own experiments. Before even beginning his apprenticeship, Draco had known what he wanted to work on. His mother had been diagnose with accidental discharge a year after the end of the war, and he wanted to create a potion that would safeguard Narcissa’s magical core from the attacks.  

Once he earned his mastery, he went completely into the experimental and research side of his field, ignoring the more profitable side of brewing for personal commissions or apothecaries. He had no need for the money anyway and his father was, Draco thought, glad of Draco’s choice. Lucius paid for Draco’s expenses, bought whatever ingredients his son needed, and waited hoping for a discovery that might spare his wife. 

Everything almost fell apart when Lucius threw him out. Draco feared all his work might be lost, but then Harry rented the small space in Diagon and offered Draco help purchasing ingredients and equipment. Draco accepted disheartedly. He bought the cheapest equipment he could find that would still be functional and bargained for hours with provides trying to get the ingredients at the lowest possible price. Even so, every Knut of Harry’s that he spent made him feel uncomfortable. So, he decided to find a sponsor. His research was extensive, his proofs proven over and over. He was only missing the Ministry approved trials and the capital to sponsor them. His potion was a good investment. He knew this. Many people suffered from residual Dark magic damage. In different concentrations, Draco believed his potion could relieve many from the symptoms of overexposure and residual trauma.  

However, despite his best efforts, no one would even consider his project. He had first written to the major Potion groups, explaining his research and petitioning for the opportunity for a formal demonstration. He had not even received a reply from most. The ones that did respond seem to do so for the simple pleasure of rejecting him.  

It was just the beginning he told himself. He would find someone; he would. He needed the trials to see if the potion was safe to use over extended time and which dosage and on what concentrations were the most effective. His mother needed this, and he was going to make it happen. So, every day he entered his small dingy lab and set to work. He spend hours brewing, sitting in a mist of fumes because the ventilation in the space was horrendous. He noted every minute change. He noted what effect different brewing techniques had on the potion: change in heat level, change in stirring, and change in the application and preparation of each ingredient. 

He often did not return to the flat until well after Harry, smelling foul and with itchy eyes. Harry usually had dinner ready for them. Draco would shower and then they would sit together to eat. Harry would talk about his day at the Ministry, about his raids, about funny things that happened in the office, about his boss giving out redundant orders, about annoying memos, and filling hateful forms. He never asked Draco what he had done with his day. When he did ask, the first few months they had lived together, Draco would always answer “brewing” or “research,” and that was that. What was he to say anyway? He had no colleagues to make fun of; he had no frustrating bosses; he did not go outside the lab unless it was to grab lunch. His answer to Harry was always simple, but what Draco did was simple. He brewed, over, and over, and over. And his applications got rejected, over, and over, and over. Harry never asked anymore, and Draco never said. 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 

Walking into Grimmauld Place is once more a surprise for Draco. The place has been remediated and no oppressive feeling attacks him. He expected that, Potter said it would be done before he was discharged, and it was. What surprises him is seeing most of the walls back up.

“I restored the walls” Potter says unnecessarily. Draco is begrudgingly impressed. Considering the damage Potter had inflicted on the walls, restoring them must have taken hours of exhausting spell casting.

“It’s still ugly” he replies looking at the cramp and dark hall before him.

“Yea, it’s an ugly house” Potter agrees. “It does need renovation. Maybe a professional?”Draco says nothing. Potter is not asking him just thinking aloud.

“I though you might want to help a bit.” Potter tells him as they walk further in. Draco stops expectantly looking at the brunet.“The basement, you could renovate it and use it. As a lab that is.”

Harry decided to offer the basement to Malfoy as apology for the Dark magic debacle. Malfoy had not accepted his apology and he still felt like an arse about it. Especially since, thanks to his stupidity, Malfoy had suffered a severe panic attack and they were both on cleansing potions for the next three weeks, three times a day every day, and the stuff tasted foul.  

He had also seen the box Malfoy had dropped in front of the library doors when he was cleaning up after Bill and his crew had dealt with the residual magic. The ingredients were littering the hallway. Harry had not thought about Malfoy’s lab, but obviously Malfoy had no funds to pay to keep the place.  

“Alright” Malfoy says and Harry thinks he is going to leave it at that. As Harry walks away, Malfoy calls to him. “Thank you” he says, looking Harry in the eyes.  Harry nods at him in acceptance.

He is still angry with Malfoy. He is still hurt and disappointed. But the cleansing potions seem to be working. He is not blindingly angry anymore. There is enough clarity in his head for thinking. He does not want Malfoy in his house, he does not want to have to see him, but the man is pregnant with his child. A child that will be born. If Harry wants to be a part of said child’s life, he will need to at least interact in a civilized manner with the other parent. Malfoy is the other parent and Harry needs to do what he always does, what he does best. He must accept his fate and do the best with what he’s got. Wishing things had been different had never changed anything anyway.  

“I’ll get someone, a professional, in to see about the renovations, if you want help with fixing up the basement lab, you can let them know.” Malfoy nods at this before making his way up the landing to his room.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 _Nine months ago…_

Draco suspected he might be drunk. Really drunk, the natural state when in the company of Pansy. They were at some hot new club, fairy lights flying about them and strong pulsing music invading their bodies. _Siren’s Call_ was one of the trendiest spots around right now, and they were here because Pansy: “wouldn’t get caught dead anywhere else.” Pansy was paying, as always, and they were smushed, well Draco was. Over the years, Draco had come to believe that Pansy would die from alcohol poisoning before she begun to slur her words. The alcoholic cunt, he thought affectionally yet enviously because he was sure _he_ would be needing help walking when they left.  

“I am sooooo glad you ditched the hubby for me tonight” Pansy was saying, her speech annoyingly slur free. Her tight blouse shimmering in the light and her lips eerily shining while the rest of her face was shadowed. Draco was drunk enough to admit her face scared him a little right now. It just looked creepy.  

“Huuub— the wha?” he responded trying to focus on the conversation while she refilled his glass. What was he drinking? He couldn’t remember what he started with, but he was sure it had been clear white. Whatever the devil masquerading as his friend was purring for him now was neon blue. He was sure he’d end up with a hungover not even his own potions could cure tomorrow.  

“Your hubby, love. I should really call you Mr. Potter at this point.” She said and laughed so hard at that Draco felt a little spit land on his face. At any other time he would have been loudly indignant and disgusted, but as it was, he only wondered where the moisture was coming from. 

He flopped on his cushions and watched the people dancing around them. He did not dance anymore, Harry was terrible at it. Draco could not figure it out, the man fucked like a champion and danced like he had two left feet and was visually impaired, which he was, but, he wore glasses. And why was he thinking about Harry’s glasses?  

“You are lucky in way though” Pansy said contemplatively, looking at the dancers as well and bringing Draco back from the labyrinth that had become his addled mind. Draco turned to her and snorted hard “How you reckon that?” He said. His hand shot out in a stop motion, practically slapping Pansy in the face.

“Lucky you say…cuase I’m doing so well prefesinal— profesenellaly? Profe—”

“Not, professionally, no.” Pansy said with a smirk. “Oh, then cause my family, how loving they are and all.”

“If Lucius Malfoy was my father, I’d consider myself lucky if he didn’t talk to me” She interrupted him. “Mother,” he mumbled and Pansy nodded in sympathy. “Anyway…” She took another sip of her glass and Draco quickly grabbed his glass as well— peer pressure would be his downfall.  

“What I meant is you’ve got Potter.”

“Hah!” he slapped his glass back down, spilling half the content over his hand and sleeve.

“I don’t got Harry! Harry’s got me.” He explained to her.

“You have each other…”

“No, he got me.”

“He loves you” Pansy said with a puzzled expression.

“Psss. What are you talking about? Love me? What’s there to love?” He tried reclining back elegantly but misjudged the distance and flopped into a sea of cushions. Why were there so many bloody cushions anyway?

“Don’t tell me you have self-esteem issues, darling. They are so middle class.”

“And I’m much much lower than that. Look at this retionalaly” he frowned that was not right, whatever, he shrugged and continued.

“All he knos 'bout me is that I’m a coward and a bully. I’ve done nothing useful, ever.”

“Your potion—”

“Which I can’t even find a stonsor for…sto..sponsor” he said very slowly. “There is nothing I got to offer but sex really. I can’t even take care of myslef.” He frowned again, fuck his stupid tongue, he was trying to make a point.

“What do I have outside a potion no ones knows about and a fabulous arse?”

“Still...”

“Potter hates potions anyway.” He finished.

“Well, at least you’ve got good sex and a fabulous arse.” She responded giving up.

“Can’t argue there.” He agreed letting his head loll to the side, watching the dancers once more. He wished he could dance again.


	10. Waiting for Peace or War

Draco tries to act natural as he removes his shirt to reveal the bump protruding on his lower belly. He carefully avoids Potter’s eyes or person as he does this. There was a time he performed a striptease wearing a thong and a cock ring on top their dining table for the man. Now the very idea of Potter seeing his nipples made him uncomfortable.

“Are you ready Draco?” Lovegood asked indicating the examination table. “Yes,” he says as he lays back to allow her to begin the examination. Draco was now at the end of his fourth month and Lovegood had mentioned on his last check that she could tell him the sex on the next exam if he wished to know. He had agreed and then invited Potter to come with him.

Why in the name of Magic had he done that? He thinks now as he sees the brunet move closer. But he knows why. Potter was trying. In the past five days since the door incident, Potter had been unfailingly polite. Draco still didn’t see much of him, but when they did meet it was to exchange greetings rather than glares. Yesterday Potter even asked him to compile a list of grocery items he might want or need, including potion ingredients. So, Draco flooed Lovegood for an appointment to reveal the kid’s gender. Then, with the most embarrassingly convoluted invitation he had ever issued, he asked Potter if he wanted to accompany him. After deciphering his roundabout invitation to the thing, Potter had said yes, and here they are.

“How are the cleansing potions going? Are they making you ill?” Lovegood asks as she approaches.

“They taste awful, but they are not making me ill, no.” He stares at her, his fingers drumming a beat at his side.

“That’s good” she responds and begins to cast. A moment later a bubble appears above the bump of his belly, an image appearing inside it. Draco and Harry stared at the little life form that twitched every now and then a little disconcerted. For one, there is an apparent tiny human shape to it but well…Draco would not call it pretty. It’ll be pretty when it’s born he decided.

“So…what is it?” Potter asks.

“A boy.” Lovegood says and Draco and Harry take her word for it.

Suddenly the entire situation feels ridiculous to Draco. He and Potter should be emotional about this or something. He feels like he is failing at his first parental obligation of being excited for no reason, although seeing his child for the first time should be reason enough. If the expression of embarrassed discomfort plastered all over Potter’s face is anything to go by, he feels much the same.   

“Well, that’s good I suppose.” Potter says.

“Either would have been good” Draco adds and Potter nods.

“You can pick a name now.” Lovegood suggests as if to give them something to think about.

“Sure” Draco says.

“Yea” Potter agrees.

The image above Draco’s middle dissipates and he quickly moves off the table making straight for his shirt. Potter and he have moved on from restrained anger to mind-numbing discomfort while being in each other's presence it would appear. Worse of all, they are to raise a child together. Draco consoles himself with the thought that they could not possibly be any more rubbish at it than his own father was.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Potter keeps his word and when Draco enters his fifth month of pregnancy, a crew headed by Mia Rochester, a young designer, come to Grimmauld to renovate the house. Mia is an energetic brunet with a lilting accent, no more than five feet tall, and with an eye for color. Draco likes her.

She asks for their input on themes or designs to which Potter responds “whatever you think, long as it’s comfortable.” Draco, although keenly aware that it’s not his house, decides to help the woman. He becomes particularly involved when they begin by renovating the basement into his new potions lab. Mia allowed him to design the space as she did not know what the best configuration for a potions lab workflow would be. A week after work started in the home, Draco had his fully equipped lab. They had added more lights and even conjured some windows to infuse the space with natural light. They improved the ventilation as well, so he would not be chocking on fumes as he had in his old lab. The walls were soft earth colors, the work tables solid oak, everything was designed to be a perfect brewing space. It was great, except for the fact that _Draco_ couldn’t brew. He could not experiment at all. The only things safe enough for him to brew now were Hogwarts level potions, calming drafts, Lovegood had suggested he brew some mild ones in case of another panic attack, anti-nausea drafts, which he did not need anymore thank goodness, and the occasional cream for stretch-marks. He might as well sit in the kitchen brewing tea for all the work he was getting done. For a workaholic such as himself to finally have the space he dreamed of working in only be allowed little more than stare at it was making him want to scream in frustration.

So, instead he follows Mia around and watches as the renovations progress. Mia had removed a number of walls on the first level, in a much more organized and less wrathful way than Potter. The changes had made the space much more appealing. It was airy, the walls’s dark colors were changed into neutrals with bright accents, rats were a thing of the past, and even the dark hardwood had been swapped for light oak that run throughout the first floor, the new furniture completed the transformation.  

Now Mia and her team were working their way quickly through the upper floors, all the way to the attic. They would be done soon and Draco is sure he’ll miss the company. Despite his improved relations with Potter, they did not interact much. Draco really spoke a lot with Mia, arguing about colors and designs or he brewed calming drafts, he had enough of it to drug a herd of Hippogriffs, and when he got too antsy, he went for walks around the park that was a few blocks south of Grimmauld. The walks help to deal with his frustration and _Morgana_ , was he _frustrated_. Lovegood had warned him about the hormonal changes and the change in his sex drive, but it was ridiculous. He’s masturbating like he is fourteen again; it’s embarrassing. His skin felt too tight and his entrance would clench suddenly, feeling unbelievably empty at the most random times. He was affronted with his body that would not let him be, especially around Potter. Alright, so sex with the man had been good, really extraordinary on their best performances, but they were over, and his body had no bloody business remembering. But, remember it did.

In order to distract himself, he brewed some more, took longer and longer walks, and once Mia and the crew were gone, he begun frequenting Grimmauld’s library. The only input about the design of his entire house Potter had given was that he wanted the library doors definitely gone. It had made Draco smile to hear him say that, and Draco had wholeheartedly agreed. So, now the spacious library was framed by a beautiful archway and had no doors. Sometimes, while sitting comfortably in one of the arm chairs with a book, Draco would see Potter come and go when he used the front door or hear him when he flooed into the living room.

By the beginning of his sixth month of pregnancy, Draco makes his way carefully down to the library almost every evening. He was bored beyond belief and had been diligently working on his Ministry permits for his potion’s trial via owl, which made him want to cry from ennui. However, without a sponsor to supply the capital, there will be little he will be able to do once he has the permits. Maybe after receiving the permits, it would be easier to attract Potion firms to his project he thinks and hopes. He is perusing the potions section of the library when he hears the front door slam open. Potter must be a foul mood if he is attacking inanimate objects again, he thinks, as he quickly extinguishes his _Lumos._ He doesn’t want to run into Potter when he’s in a mood.

Draco stands unmoving next to the shelf and sees Potter moving pass the archway only to be pulled suddenly back by a hand on his elbow. Then there is another man there. The man has light brown curly hair and his clothes are so tight there is little left to the imagination. The stranger quickly pulls Potter toward him and Potter takes him into his arms before attacking his lips. Potter kisses as if he is ravenous. His left hand sinks into the brown curls tilting the face of the man just so, the man goes with it arching his back and opening his mouth for Potter’s tongue. Potter’s other hand runs over the shoulders, down the spine, and onto the round globes covered by fake leather. Potter kneads the flesh and the unknown brunet moans enticingly.

Draco barely breathes as he watches the lithe brunet arch into Potter, rubbing their obvious erections together. The man spreads his legs letting one of Potter’s thighs between them. Potter grabs one of the other’s legs and brings it around his waist. The younger brunet doesn't miss a beat before taking a light jump and wrapping both legs tightly around Potter. They never stop kissing as Potter blindly turns toward the landing as if the other weights nothing and makes his way upstairs.

Draco blinks at the empty hallway. _What the fucking bloody fuck_? What was… _what_?

Almost ten minutes later, the kicking coming from inside his belly finally takes him out of his shock enough that he quickly makes his way towards the landing. He takes the steps up feeling dread building as he reaches the bedroom hallway. He makes his way towards his door but halts when he hears a loud moan in a voice he does not recognize coming from a few doors down.

He might not recognize the voice, but he _knows_. He knows what the sound _means_. It means Potter is fucking. Draco had made those sounds for years. Always, when Potter sunk into him, stretching him to the brink of pain, pulling back and then pushing in again. Those same sounds were echoing, muffled, from a few doors down where the little tart was enjoying Potter’s cock. Draco knew the slut would be screaming when Potter begun fucking him in earnest. How could they be this _rude_? He thought, breathing quickly through his nostrils. The polite thing is to cast a bloody silencing charm. How was he suppose to sleep—“Ah! aaah…” Draco’s eyes widened, and he took a half turn and quickly moved down the stairs.

He walked purposefully towards the library only to walk back out and make his way to the basement. He walked around his work table feeling like he wanted to run, tension gathering in his legs and shoulders, his body vibrating with unspent energy. He walked back onto the first floor and up onto the second only to be chased away again by the very, very loud cacophony of sounds of obvious pleasure. He made his way back to the lab and set out to brew another batch of fucking calming draft.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Draco chops, chops, chops, chops, chops the eel, banging his knife against the table, dulling the blade, his brow sweating with the effort. He stops, looking at it, then chops it some more, just to make sure it’s dead. He throws his knife aside, bloody, scoops the pieces of eel and throws them in the caldron. The contents splash onto the table from the impact. It does not matter because he is _creating_. He is throwing all the ingredients that he is allowed to use into his cauldron to see what comes of it. By the looks of it, a big greenish mush it’ll be. He looks at the ceiling calculating the time and guessing that Potter’s _guest_ must still be _visiting_.

He grabs his knife and assaults another eel. Potter had had a lot of _guests_ in the past three weeks. Apparently he did not bring his _guests_ to Grimmauld in the past because it was a disgusting, creepy, hell hole. But now that it looks all pretty, Potter decided to stuff it with _pretty guests_ , and stuff said _pretty_ _guests_ with his cock. He grabs the eel in one fist and throws it in. The potion spits green fluid at him. It might explode. The bastard hadn’t even got decency enough to use a silencing charm! They were muggles you see and, bla, bla, bla, and statue of secrecy bla, bla, bla. Draco could cast his own silencing charms, of course, but that was _not_ the point. Potter should cast them as a _courtesy_. Draco stormed to his ingredients’ shelves again, grabbing some bat wings and running back to his table to the chop them too.

He hoped this bimbo did not stay for breakfast. A few had, and Draco had felt his nausea from his first trimester returning with a vengeance each time. The nausea was either caused by the disillusionment charms he had to cast on himself to hide his belly or by presenting the spectacle of the very satisfied smiles the tarts usually wore the entire time they sat there eating. _No one_ could enjoy runny eggs that much! He throws away the knife deciding to debone the wings with his bare hands. 

Draco just wants some _peace_. He wants to really brew again, he wants to be able to see his cock again; his belly was too big now for him to see it unless standing in front of a mirror. He wanted the fucking permits to come through, he wanted to see his mother, and he fucking wanted Potter to cast the bloody silencing charms so that he did not have to hear the rutting that occurred nightly four doors down from his room. He slams the pieces of bat wings into the cauldron and sits down on his stool to watch his mush boil.

Malfoy has lost his marbles. Harry is sure of it. They had been doing fine after Malfoy returned from Hospital after the Dark Magic thing, but now something had thrown Malfoy into a hissy fit like no other Harry had seen him in since he was a teenager. Now Harry said “Hello,” and receive a “Hmf’ and a raised nose for response. The day before yesterday, he walked into the kitchen to grab some coffee before heading to work, Malfoy was sitting at the table having breakfast. As soon as the blonde saw him, he pushed out of his chair like it was on fire and walked out of the kitchen without saying a word. Harry got to the coffee and was purring himself a cup when Malfoy walked back in, grabbed his plate and cutlery, and walked right back out. “All right…” Harry said blinking at the door. The fuck was wrong with the man?  

Harry finally asked him yesterday when they run into each other in the kitchen.

“Everything alright with you Malfoy?”

“Everything’s fine. You, Potter?”

“Fine, thank you. Are you sure?”

“Are you sure?”

“About what?” Harry asked confused.

“About being fine.”

“Yes?” Harry said.

“Well, I am glad. Me too.”

“You are also sure?”

“Sure.”

“Are _we_ fine?” Harry tried again.

“Are we not?” the blonde answered.

“We are?” This was a bizarre conversation Harry thought.

“We are.”

“Alright” Harry said more confused than before he asked.

“Fine.” The blonde said and headed back to the lab from where he emerged only to take meals.   

They were not fine. Malfoy’s attitude keeps deteriorating more every day and Harry wants to yell at him but Malfoy is so fucking pregnant now. He is really, really pregnant. He wobbles around, eats like it’s a national sport, and constantly rubs his belly. So Harry is trying, it’s easier to put his anger about the past and Malfoy's current attitude issues aside when Malfoy looks like an irritated baby whale. Harry can’t help feeling sorry for the guy. So he lets Malfoy be as moody as he pleases and responds with unfailing politeness to all his remarks or actions.

In the meantime, Draco wobbles back and forth in his lab fuming about Potter’s patronizing overly polite behavior. The politer the git was to him, the more Draco wanted to jinx his bollocks off. The _nerve_ of the man, he thought.


	11. Waiting for Forgiveness

_Three months before Draco’s and Harry’s breakup…_

Brandon Davis walked into Draco’s lab smiling from ear to ear. Draco looked up from the forms he had been filling when he heard the door. “We are all set. We only need to get through with the permits and move to the trials!” Brandon told him throwing a thick folder on Draco’s work bench. As soon as the Ministry approved the trials, Draco would sign the contract with _Nickolson and Davis_ and his potion would officially be on the market.

“That’s the best news I’ve gotten in ages.” Draco tells him smiling. It was almost unbelievable really. Two months ago, he had written to _Nickolson and Davis_ among another set of about fifteen applications expecting the same response he always got. But, instead, three days later he had received an owl:

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

_we at Nickolson and Davis have examined your proposal and find your work intriguing and compelling. We would like to meet with you and further acquaint ourselves with your project. Please inform us of the most convenient time in the upcoming week for you to visit our London Office. We hope to hear from you soon,_

_most sincerely, Nickolson and Davis._

Until a few weeks before sending his letter, Draco had not even heard of the firm, but it was no matter. He immediately responded, setting an appointment for the following Monday. That was the day he met Brandon Davis. This was his break, he thought and had not been wrong. Davis was, if anything, more enthused about the possibilities Draco’s potion presented than Draco himself, if that were possible. In the past two months, the man had hounded Draco, asking about everything, every step of his research and his experiments. They had lunch together almost daily as they discussed how to design the first set of trials, how to begin distribution once the potion was approved. Brandon never questioned that it _would_ be approved. “You have no idea what you have created, do you?” He asked Draco in wonder when Draco confessed his fear about having the trials fail.

Davis was always supportive as they navigated the Ministries bureaucracy and reassured Draco that the Ministry had made everything complicated every time he had requested a formal trial for a new potion. 

“So, these need to be filled as well?” Draco asked leafing through the folder Brandon had placed before him.

“In triplicate” the other man said, and smiled when Draco wrinkled his nose.

“Once all this is over, we will move onto the real work and you will be making history.” He told Draco looking him in the eyes.Draco laughed, smacking the folder onto the work table.

“Potion masters don’t make history. We make the drafts by which assassins are known for, at most.”

“You really don’t realize how your potion will impact the field of Healing?”

“Of course I am aware that it will be useful. I wouldn’t have spent over six years of my life working on it otherwise.”  

“I’m glad to hear you know that. Cause you will be saving lives with this Draco Malfoy, not just your mother’s but hundreds… You are brilliant and brilliantly beautiful”

Brandon moved to take his hand squeezing reassuringly, his intense gaze boring into Draco, and Draco knew, he _knew_ Brandon wanted, not the Potions Master; he wanted _Draco_. For a moment, Draco could not help but think that his father would have liked the man. That his life might have been easier had he…And then, Brandon leaned in and kissed him.

It was a soft kiss. The sort of kiss that explores, not the kiss of long known lovers, but the kiss of new possibilities. Draco let his eyes close for a moment. It was different yet not than he was accustomed to, these lips on his. Then his mind was flooded with all the small instances of the past two months. The long lunches that never lacked conversation. The laughter, their comedic arguments, the silent moments they shared in this very lab as Draco work and Brandon observed. He thought of Brandon’s enthusiasm about his project that seemed to breathe new life into Draco. He moved slightly back to stare at Brandon in the quiet of the lab.

When Brandon leaned in again, Draco allowed his eyelashes to drop over his eyes, cocooning him in darkness. Yes, this fit, he thought. Brandon fit into Draco’s understanding of everything so much more than…

Yes, this could make loving so much easier.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 _  
_

Draco finally breaks the day that he sees the brunet from three weeks ago accompanying Potter into the house once more, his head thrown back as he laughed at something Potter said.

“Potter!” he says blocking the entrance hallway and not bothering to cast his disillusionment charm.

“Is that…Are you…” The young brunet says looking at Draco’s stomach.

“Do you have a disease mate?” he finally asks. _Muggles_ , Draco thinks.

“Yea, he gave it to me.” Draco tells him nodding his head toward Potter. Potter in the meantime is looking at Draco like he has lost his mind, while discreetly pulling out his wand and casting a quick _Obliviate_ at his companion before apparating away with the dazed muggle.

Draco has barely a moment to savor the satisfaction of being rid of the muggle slut before Potter apparates in front of him.

“Are you bloody insane?!” He says to Draco.

“No. I am tired. Tired of your…” Draco makes a vague motion with his hand.

“Malfoy that was a fucking muggle and you just stood there pregnant as if it were the most normal thing in the world.” Harry tells him.

“It is the most natural—”

“Not to muggles is not!”

“Well then don’t bring your fucking muggles to a fucking magical house to fuck them!!!” Draco screams so hard his throat aches.

“It’s MY house!” Harry yells just as loudly.

“Fine!” Draco says wobbling quickly into the living room. Potter is hot on his heels.

“Don’t you fucking go hiding in that lab again, Malfoy.”

“Potter!” Draco growls when the other blocks his way to the basement.

“It’s not ‘Fine’ and I want to know what your problem is.” Harry quickly cuts him off.

“My problem?” Draco says approaching him slowly.

“Why do you bring them here?”

“What?”

“Why do you bring your fuck toys here?! Why do you rub it in my face?”

“My dates—”

“Your sluts!”

“Whatever. They are none of your business!”

“You and I,” Harry aggressively points between the two of them “Are over. _Because_ you cheated.” His voice is even as he looks at Draco stating the reality that eats at Draco every day. He cheated. He betrayed, he lied, because he is a _coward_.

“Is that what this is about? I cheated so now you do this, this revenge—”

“What do you care!?” Harry yells again.“You couldn’t be rid of me fast enough when your pureblood boyfriend came along. What does it matter whom I fuck now?”

“I didn’t—”

“You didn’t what?”

“You didn’t want to see me after, that’s why—”

“I told you before not to fucking lie to me. You disappeared because you had what you wanted, and what you wanted wasn’t _me_.” Harry interrupts him as wild magic thrums through him. Malfoy is not aware enough to care about Harry’s wild magic at this point. He ignores it as he moves closer to continue yelling.

“I’m not lying! I never hurt you—”

“What the fuck are _saying?_ ” Harry growls suddenly grabbing both of Draco’s wrists and pulling him closer. Draco’s protruding belly lightly touching Harry’s stomach.

“You never hurt me? Weren’t you the one fucking some other bloke when we were _a couple_? Was I confused? Was it somebody else having sex with Davis all those months _Draco_? ” Harry’s hands tighten around Draco’s wrists with every question. Draco can almost feel the bruises forming.

“I didn’t hurt you. You were, you still are, offended but I _didn’t_ hurt you.”

“I swear to God Draco, if you weren’t pregnant I’d punch you again.” Harry says through his teeth.

“I didn’t hurt—”

“What do you think you did then!?” Harry says pushing Draco away as if touching him is too much.

“I walk into _my home_ to see the man I’m in love with fucking somebody else. What did you _think_ I’d feel?”

“You don’t love me!”

“I did then!”

“No! You never loved me.” Draco insists.

“Why? Since you know how I felt better than me, tell me fucking why I spent three years with you then? Why did I ask you to move in with me?” Draco looks at Harry desperately. He doesn’t _understand._ Potter speaks but he cannot understand him because Potter doesn’t love him, _he doesn’t_. Draco knows this. What Potter is saying now is nonsensical. They were attracted to each other, they were compatible in bed like nothing one could imagine, but, outside of that, there was always just empty space. Draco _knows_ this.  

“You—you wanted to help me.”

“By asking you to live with me?”

“I had nowhere else to go and you liked me and the sex. So it was a fair deal.” Draco finished trying to make Harry understand. Potter was now standing there in the middle of the living room looking at him with an expression of horror.

“A _deal_. You spend three years with me, you had sex with me as _payment._ ”

“What?” Draco asks and Potter looks like he might sick up right there on the new floors.

“ _No_!” Draco says when Potter’s meaning becomes apparent. But Potter isn’t listening.

“Harry! Harry listen to me—”

“No. I’ve—I’ve heard more than enough, thank you.” Harry says as he turns to leave the room. Draco rushes after him, barely catching Harry before he walks out the front door.

“Listen to ME!” He says grabbing Harry by the wrist with one hand while the other grabbed Harry’s shirt on the center of his chest.

“I enjoyed everything we did together. I wanted it and I most certainly never sold myself to you Potter.” Harry is pulling out of his hold. His face showing that he wants nothing more than to get out and away from Draco.

“Please! Harry. Please, _listen_ to me.” He says pulling so hard on Harry’s shirt that the first two buttons go flying.

“No one could have pretended that well. Think about how we were together! How eager I always was! For Circe, Harry, even when I thought myself in love with someone else I couldn’t resist you. You didn’t get me pregnant by raping me and I could have walked by then, but I didn’t—”

“Why the fuck didn’t you!?” Harry scream desperately, his hands grabbing Draco by the shoulders and pushing him away. Draco is horrified to see tears running down his cheeks.

“Why didn’t you just leave? Why did you have to do this Draco?!”

“Harry…” Draco says, his hands coming up in a pleading gesture. He had not wanted to leave. He had wanted to and yet not. He had been afraid. Draco looked at the man before him. He had been afraid and for that reason, he had hurt Harry. Really hurt him. Draco had never thought Harry in love with him, infatuated yes, but in love? How could he? Why would he? What had Draco ever offered him other than awkward moments when Potter’s friends were around, expenses that he should not cover, and responsibilities that were not Potter’s to deal with? Why would he love me?

But the why is not important. Potter—Harry _had_ loved him anyway. Draco thought Harry was angry but Harry was _hurt._ The only person that helped him when his own family had failed him, the person that was _still_ helping. I hurt him, he thinks. Draco had thought he hated himself enough, but the feeling of such worthlessness overcomes him now that he wonders if it’d be better for his child if Harry raised it without Draco. Because Draco is destructive. He cannot do things right. It’s not in his nature to be perceptive of the feelings of others, too wrapped up in his own. His selfishness had hurt a person that for whatever reason had found it in him to _love him_ when even Draco could not love himself.  

“Tell me why. I deserve for you to tell me why.” Harry repeats calmly now. He seems exhausted as if he has spent all these months holding back the question and was now giving up the fight.

“You are…You are steady” Draco begins.

“When my father is like quicksand. You are always steady, unmoving, _secure_ —” Draco stops. His hands go to his belly feeling the child roll inside him.

“Father, Brandon, they are quicksand. But you? You are unbreakable and you are _safety_ to me. Even, even when I was with Brandon” he forces himself to continue, tears wetting his cheeks.

“Even when I was with him, I trusted you more. I was, I am, a coward Harry. You were my shield, my unbreakable shield.”

“I’m not unbreakable Malfoy.” Harry tells him. “You did a fine job smashing me to smithereens.”

Draco looks at him, shaking, his hands pressing into his protruding stomach where their child lies unmoving. Draco takes a shaky breath.

“I am so, so sorry Harry.” He says.

“I am sorry, I have been sorry, and will always be sorry.” He can’t continue because he is hyperventilating and shaking all over.

Harry is looking at Malfoy. Malfoy is barely keeping his legs from buckling, standing there shaking, tears and snot running down his face, holding so desperately onto his belly. Holding onto his child, the only thing Malfoy has these days, Harry thinks. Safety, that’s what Harry had meant to him. Not a lover, not love but security. Harry wants to be angry about it. But he is finally looking at Malfoy as Malfoy sees himself. Not the alluring aristocrat with a sharp tongue and a dedication to his profession. Harry can see Draco now. The man that has failed at everything he set out to do in life, who has lost all that was important to him, his family, his status, the respect of his community, his friends, and now even the person that offered him safety, Harry himself.

For a moment, when Draco had been angry about Harry’s dates, Harry had thought it was jealousy, but it wasn’t. It was fear. Fear that he might lose what’s left of their connection and end up completely alone. Draco did not want him, but he needed him, Harry could see that clearly now. Through their years together, Harry had hoped Draco would love him, then he had been devastated thinking Draco loved someone else, but that was not the case either. Draco could not love anyone. Draco would not inflict his presence upon someone he loved. Draco Malfoy could not love while he hated himself. He could not love Harry. But he needed Harry. In that moment Harry was honest enough to think _I’ll wait._

“Draco.” He says, which only makes the other man shake harder. He approaches slowly and wraps his arms around the blonde. Harry holds him for a while, and Draco leans most of his weight onto the brunet. Draco feels completely drained yet anxious, his arms still pressed to his belly.

“I’m sorry” he whispered onto Harry’s shoulder.

“I know.”

“Are we alright then?”

“We will be.” Harry tells him before pulling away. He turns to the coat closet.

“Were are you going.” Draco asks. Harry pulls two coats out shrugging his own on before presenting the other to Draco.

“We are going for a walk.” He tells the pregnant man.

Draco accepts the coat and awkwardly puts it on. Once he is ready, Harry opens the door and walks onto the first step where he waits for Draco. Harry offers him his hand to help him down the slippery steps, still wet from the downpour of a few hours ago. Draco takes the arm. Once they are down they move apart and begin to walk. It’s cold. Draco can see his breath ghost in front of him but the cold is helping him calm down.They make it to the park Draco usually frequents. It’s empty at this time of the night. They silently walk to one of the benches, and Harry quickly casts a drying charm at it before they sit. They sit side to side elbows almost touching.

“I’ m sorry.” Draco says again after a moment.

“I know. I’m sorry too.” Harry says in return.

Harry turns to look at the blonde. “I forgive you.” He tells him. He is not sure he means it, but Draco needs to hear it, so Harry is willing to say it. He’ll mean it someday, he hopes.

“Thank you.” Draco says. They sit for a while before anyone speaks again.

“It’ll snow early this year” Harry comments looking at the sky. Draco smiles softly when Harry looks at him.

“You want snow?” Harry remembers that Draco complained a lot about the snow most times. Draco doesn’t say anything. He grabs Harry’s hand that lies between them on the bench and places it on his belly where the child is kicking. Harry looks at his hand, feeling the small movements of his child.  

 

 


	12. Waiting for the Arrival

 Draco lifts his wand and the pot elegantly tilts to serve tea into the porcelain cup. The polite thing is to do this by hand, but, at the eighth month of his pregnancy, his belly seems to get in the way of everything. After the cup is purred, the pot lands back on the tray without a sound.

“Milk?” The woman before him nods her head, so he adds a splash of milk before floating the cup to her.

“Thank you.” Says Hermione Granger in a very precise manner.

“Of course.” He responds, lightly placing his own cup on top his belly.

Granger takes a sip and Draco follows the example. They must look comfortable, sitting in the new parlor, in plush armchairs, in a bright lit room with the fire cracking across from them. If the silence had been more companionable and less formal, they might have been. As it was, Draco felt like he was at one of his parents’ grand luncheons sitting in freshly pressed, pristine robes and ordered to remain still, _for hours_. Where the hell was _Harry_?

Since their explosive discussion a week ago, things had been strange. Potter was Harry again and Malfoy was Draco, but the casualness that the use of the first names suggested was not really there. Harry had stopped bringing _visitors_ , and they had spoken some more, conversations that begun only to become too uncomfortable and sputter to their end.

Harry asked over dinner three days ago what he was working on and Draco replied potions. But when Harry seem disappointed by the reply, he had tried to explain. Harry had been a little surprised to find out that Draco had been working on a single potion since before they dated, and Draco was completely shocked to realize that Harry really had no idea what he had been working on the past seven years.

“So, your potion could cure what your mother suffers from?”

“No. Not cure. Her core has sustained damage that cannot be reversed…The potion is meant to stabilize the core so that more damage doesn’t occur and she can use magic again.”

“Your mother can’t use magic?” Harry asked shocked.

“Other than basic spells, not really.” Draco said, feeling very uncomfortable. It felt like he was betraying his mother in a way. A pureblood that was unable to use magic, almost like a squib, what fate could be worse for his proud and resilient mother. And here he was speaking of it to a stranger…Not a stranger, he corrected himself. He was speaking to _Harry_ , so maybe it was alright.

Draco knew that Harry had an attachment to his mother, a sort of silent respect since they never communicated. Draco suspected his mother felt the same towards the Auror.

“But you have the potion to stabilize her core now, so that’s good.”

“It’d be good if I could get the potion tested and approved for use, which I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I—I don’t have the permits, it’s a nightmare to get through all the applications, especially…”

“What?”

“I—I don’t have a sponsor.”

“Davis.” Harry said in understanding. Draco felt his roast get stuck going down his throat a moment and forced it down.

“Yes, Davis.” At this point, it was easier to say the name Voldemort in this house than the name Brandon Davis it seemed.

“I…What happened had nothing to do with the permits” Draco wants to clarify. He did _not_ have an affair with Brandon for the permits, whatever other mistakes he might have made, _that_ was not one of them.

“I know that.” Was all Harry bothered to say. “Without a sponsor you can’t get the permits?”

“No, I can. But once you have them the trials need to be financed by a registered potions firm or by the Ministry.”

“The Ministry can sponsor?”

“Of course. Some of the most promising Potions research and experimentation is sponsored by the Ministry itself.”

“Couldn’t you apply to them?” Draco laughed at this.

“They were the first I applied to. In the past two years I have applied four times, every six months, which is the maximum allowed.”

“Oh.”

“Yea.”

Draco thought the conversation had concluded on that evening. But yesterday the Auror had knocked on his lab door, and, for the first time, walked into Draco’s sanctuary.

“Will you be available tomorrow?”

“Available for what?” Draco asked a bit surprised by the formality.

“For a visit. Hermione…I would like you to meet with her.”

“Sure…” Harry had walked back out and left for the Ministry before Draco had the opportunity to ask _why_ he was to meet with Granger.  

 

“So… when are you due?” Granger asks.

“Four more weeks, give or take.” She nods.

“Malfoy, I am not sure what happened between you and Harry…” She begins and Draco can feel himself tensing. Even if Harry did not say anything about what happened, Draco knows that if there is one person that can accurately guess, it would be the woman before him.

“I…”

“You hurt him.” She cuts him off.

“Yes, I did.” She nods her head and Draco is sure she knows.

“I’m here because he asked me to come. But I will not do this unless I think it’s worth it.”

“What are you on about?” She puts her cup down and looks at him.

“I want you to tell me about your potion.” Draco finally understands. Harry twisted Granger’s arm to make her come here.

“Why? You are not affiliated with a potions firm or the Ministry. Your Law Degree specializes in Magical creature rights.”

“Yes. But I am a fully trained arguer and can take cases out of my specialization.”

“I don’t have a case.” He says confused.

“You want to receive the permits to begin your trials and this is a high level Healing potion from what Harry explained.”

“Yes…”

“High level healing potions get prioritized in the Ministry sponsor selection. The fact that yours has been ignored for years could be considered an act of discrimination. That is, of course, if your work is solid.”

“I spent years developing this potion and I have all the research to prove it.” He says slightly miffed that Granger would suggest he has done sub-par work. But only slightly because, holly bloody fucking Merlin. If Granger is saying what he thinks she is… Considering her clout as an arguer...

Draco almost pitied the Ministry employ that would have to deal with her, almost. He smiled.

“Please follow me to the lab.” He says and Granger quickly stands. It would have been more satisfying if he could have quickly rose as well instead of wiggling in his seat until he had enough momentum to push himself off of it. He was _so ready_ to give birth. 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Despite knowing the tenacity that characterizes Hermione Granger, Draco is still surprised three weeks later when she visits again.

“The Department of Potion’s Trials and Certification has set a committee to re-examine your proposal.” She tells him with a self satisfied smile, slowly crossing her legs and accepting the cup he floats toward her.

“The department doesn’t set up committees within weeks of the filling of a complaint.” Draco says surprised, rubbing his back as he sits looking at the official invitation to present to said committee Granger has given him.

“They do if they want to avoid a law suit.” She says airily as she sips her tea, and Draco suddenly thinks that he is very glad that, for once, she is on his side.

Granger had been furious once she reviewed Draco’s project. That such a potion had been kept out of the hands of Healers because of bureaucratic shenanigans and idiotic discrimination, her words, was simply unacceptable. Draco could not believe it. The Ministry itself would be sponsoring his project. He had no doubt that it would be so, not with Granger heading the crusade. The woman played the Ministry as if it were a declawed kitten.

“Granger, have you considered running for Minister of Magic?” He asks only half joking.

“Of course I have. I’ll be running in ten years and expect your vote.” She smiled at him and Draco is sure she is _not_ joking. They look at each other and then they are both laughing until Draco feels the uncomfortable wetness.  

His eyes widen in shock, for a moment thinking that the baby had kicked his bladder and he has soiled himself. But soon he realizes that the wetness is coming from his new opening, which had fully developed in the last two months of his pregnancy. The slit had made him extremely uncomfortable when he discovered it nestled behind his testicles. Lovegood had explained that his body would develop a way of delivering the child, and tada! This was it. Draco was glad to know that although the birthing canal was permanent, the opening would seal within weeks of the birth and would not reappear unless he became pregnant again. Although the opening had been present for weeks, he still pissed from his penis, so the wetness there… 

“Granger, I believe my water just broke.” He tells his guest evenly.

“Should I help you to St. Mungo’s?” She asks as she rises quickly. He gives her a jerky nod and takes her offered arm to lift himself off the seat.

As he straightens, he feels a sharp pain run through his lower back and wrap around his belly, he can feel his insides constrict. This must be a contraction; it’s not so bad, he thinks.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 “MAKE IT STOP!” Draco screams three hours later. His face flushed and the veins in his arms pronounced, pounding as he grabs the sides of the bed trying to lift himself out of it.

“Draco you are not dilated enough to give birth, please stop pushing.” Lovegood tells him with a calming tone.

“You are a horrible Healer!” He yells at her.

He wants to leave, he wants to get a good Healer and have this done with already, he wants the stupid mediwizard to stop touching him, he wants his mother, and where the fuck is Harry?!

“I am going to check you again alright?” Lovegood says, and Draco can feel her fingers on his opening.

“You are still not there. Keep your strength for later. Don’t push.” She says but Draco isn’t listening because it’s starting again and he wants to push, he _needs_ to.

“OH! Fuck this shit!” he yells, internally promising to never have sex again. Without contraception that is.              

On November 3rd, a total of eight hours of labor later, Harry having been present for the last three since they had been unable to locate him earlier, Draco finally birthed a very loud, very red, and very healthy boy.  

Draco holds his son, still in shock with the reality of _having_ a son. It wasn’t a surprise exactly, he had been pregnant for nine months after all, but now he has a _son_. The baby has a bit of dark hair on top his mostly bold head, and Draco wasn’t able to see the color of his eyes before they closed.

He turns to look at Harry who sits at the end of the bed. Feeling the weight of his son in his arms, Draco is suddenly filled with so much gratitude for the man sitting quietly there that he thinks he will explode into fireworks.

“Do you want to hold him?” He asks with a smile. Harry approaches and sits himself close enough that Draco barely needs to move to transfer the baby into Harry’s arms.

“Hello, Scorpius.” Harry says. They had agreed on the name weeks ago. Scorpius Alistair Potter.

“Are you sure you don’t want to add Malfoy. It wouldn’t be that long a name: Scorpius Alistair Malfoy-Potter?”

“No.” Draco says. It had been a painful decision, and he hopes he did not make it out of spite. He believes he has not made it out of spite. He can simply not, in good conscience, give his son Lucius’s name.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I don’t think I can even do it if I wanted to. As the patriarch, Lucius has the right to deny the name Malfoy to any person.”

“Bu this is your son.” Harry tells him.

“Which he told me to be rid of. He won’t recognize him as a Malfoy, Harry. I doubt he recognizes me at this point.”

“Are you telling me that you’ve lost your surname?”

“No, I am the product of legitimate marriage, he recognized me as such when I was born. He can disown me but I’m still a Malfoy.” He says running a finger down his son’s cheek, marveling at the softness.

“He’s a Potter, and I’m fine with that, really.” He finally says looking at Harry.


	13. Waiting for Results

Harry wishes he'd put on some slippers before getting up to see to Scorpius. It was two weeks to the New Year and the snow wouldn’t let off. The babe was little more than a month old, but had the most impressive pair of lungs on him, his wails echoing though the second floor. When Harry got up to go into the nursery, he had run into Draco, who was stumbling his way there as well, and told him to go back to bed.

Draco was exhausted. The birthing, the breastfeeding, the lack of sleep, and the preparation for the formal trials for his potion that were set to start after New Year’s had the man drained. Not that Harry was much better. Work at the Ministry was piling up, as it usually did during the holidays, and Scorpius was really a handful, especially the nappies part. While Harry was in the house, Draco refused to change the soiled nappies. “I did my fair share birthing him, you should collaborate at least in this.” He had joked. Joke or not, Harry had nappy duty when in residence. Harry made a fuss about it but he did not mean it, and it was liberating, being comfortable enough with Draco again to joke with him.  

Harry looks down at his son whose big grey eyes are still filled with tears. “Please go to sleep?” Harry asks him only to get a grimace and the continuation of the wails. So, he continues to walk around the room. On his third round, the baby finally quiets, his eyelids dropping in slumber, and Harry feels a tingling sensation, the wards informing him that the floo has been activated. He quickly lays the slumbering babe into the crib and runs down to the living room. At ten to four in the morning this cannot be a good call, he thinks as he answers. 

“Luna?” He says when he sees the blond woman through the flames.

“Harry! Could you please get Draco?”

“Is something wrong? What’s happened?”

“Narcissa Malfoy was brought into the emergency room.”

“No…” Harry says. “How bad is it?”

“Please get Draco, Harry.” He nods and quickly moves up the stairs and to Draco’s room. He enters and walks to the blonde’s bedside.

“Draco” he calls lightly shaking the man.

“Does Scorpius need feeding?” the blonde answers a little confused.

“No. Luna’s at the floo. There’s been an incident with your mom.”

Draco looks at him a moment before shooting out of the bed and running down the stairs. Harry runs, grabs Draco’s wand and turns down the corridor to get his own. He reaches the living room in time to hear Draco questioning Luna.

“She’s never had to be transferred to hospital before!”

“I can’t tell you much Draco, it’s not my case. I just thought that your father might not have notified you—”

“Of course he didn’t! I need to go to St. Mungo’s” he turns to tell Harry.

“I need to—I am not dressed.” He says looking at his pajamas, which Harry quickly transfigures into dark robes and he does his own as well, conjuring some shoes for both of them.

Draco nods and turns towards the floo only to quickly turn around and run out of the room towards the basement. A moment later he reappears holding a vial and quickly floos to St. Mungo’s. Harry quickly floos Hermione, asking her to come through to watch Scorpius, which she does immediately, and then floos to St. Mungo’s as well.

“You have no business here.” Is the first thing Harry hears when he reaches room 324 were Narcissa Malfoy is. Lucius stands blocking the door into the room while Draco looks at him in his badly transfigured robes.

“My mother is dying and you didn’t bother to even call me!” He tells the man standing before him.

“You are not—”

“I don’t care what I am to you! She is _my_ mother! Get out of the way.” He growls at Lucius. Lucius loses his sneer when his son pushes him hard enough that they both go tumbling into the room. Harry runs to the door only to see Draco moving past the startled Lucius to stand at his mother’s side.

Harry enters the room apparently unnoticed by the two Malfoys and the Healer.

“How did this happen” Draco whispers looking at the pale face of his mother.

“She suffered an episode earlier in the day. Unfortunately, her regular Healer could not stabilize her core and brought her in.”

“And…”

“Mr. Malfoy her core has continued to drain rapidly.” The Healer explained pointing at the charm high above Narcissa that indicated the declining numbers of the strength of her core.

Draco looks at the numbers and then at the vial in his hand.

“Have you done everything you could?” He asks the Healer desperately.

“Mr. Malfoy, I am very sorry, but it’s a matter of time now.” The man says looking him in the eye.

“You have nothing more you can try?” He asks again the feeling of the vial in his fist heavy as if he were carrying the world.

“I am sorry.” Says the Healer, and Draco moves closer to his mother.

“I want you to administer this.” He says presenting the vial to the Healer.

“What is it?”

“A—it’s a stabilizer potion.” Draco tells him and sees the confusion on the face of the man.

“Please…” he says.

“Is this a Ministry approved potion?” Asks the Healer.

“The trials begin in a couple of weeks—”

“I can’t administer an unapproved potion—”

“But, you have to” Draco says his voice breaking.

“Mr. Malfoy it’s illegal for me to do so. I am sorry but—”

“That’s fine.” Harry says moving in and grabbing the potion from the Healer.

“Harry what—?”

“Should I give her the entire vial?” Harry asks looking at Draco from the other side of the bed. Draco slowly nods and Harry slowly preys Narcissa’s mouth open tipping the vial so that the liquid purrs down. He then slowly massages her throat, until the potion is swallowed. The Healer looks on uncomfortably while Lucius approaches the foot of the bed to look at his wife.

Please, Draco thinks. Please work. He is terrified. What if the dose is too high and it kills his mother? What if it’s too low and has no effect? What if it’s just no good?! It is good, he tells himself. He made this _for her,_ and it will work. It has to because he promised to help her. _Please_ he thinks as he watches the numbers above his mother. And the numbers change again, they decline further. 

For a moment, Draco is not sure what he is seeing. He knows but cannot accept, as his mother’s core continues to drain, his eyes close.

“You couldn’t even do this right.” He hears Lucius say from somewhere.

“Shut up.” He says without opening his eyes.

“You—”

“SHUT UP!” Draco repeats turning to look at the man. The man that looks so much like him, whose eyes his son has inherited, and who brought a monster into his life and his mother’s. A monster that broke them all.

“Shut up. You…you. This is all you.” Draco says with venom.

“Draco” Harry intervenes. Draco does not turn.

“Draco! They are climbing!” Draco’s head shoots up looking at the numbers. They are higher than they had been a minute ago. As he looks on they climb three more digits and Draco feels like the first time when he saw Scorpius, as if, for this single moment, the universe is a perfect place.

Two hours later, the Healers have concluded a series of exams on the still unconscious Narcissa and have established that her core is safe.

“At this point she is just exhausted.” The Healer tells Draco and Harry as they stand outside Narcissa’s room, Lucius having stayed with his wife. Draco nods.

“I’ll be back in a few hours to see her.” He tells the floor before the Healer. The Healer nods.

“Mr. Malfoy.” He says as Harry turns Draco toward the floos. They stop and look at the man.

“Good luck in the potion trials, sir.” He says in a way that indicates Draco won’t need it.

“Thank you.” Draco says before letting Harry guide him to the floos.  

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The first thing Harry and Draco hear when they enter Grimmauld are the wails of their son. They quickly walk upstairs to find a very flustered Hermione Granger.

“What happened?” She says as soon as she sees them.

“All good.” Harry says as Draco takes the baby from her arms and moves to feed him.

“Is Mrs. Malfoy alright” she asks Harry as they move away from Malfoy to give him some privacy.

“Draco gave her the potion.” He says. Hermione’s eyes go wide.

“He gave her the potion! If anything had gone wrong he would have been ruined, jailed even.”

“I know. The Healer wouldn’t administer it.”

“Draco gave it to her himself?”

“Um…I did.”

“Harry, you are an _Auror_ ”

“She was dying Mione, and it worked.” That is enough for Hermione and she nods in acceptance. She turns to Draco saying goodbye before giving Harry a hug and moving down the stairs.

A few minutes later, Draco is done feeding and burping Scorpius and he passes the baby to Harry before walking out of the room. Harry walks Scorpius around the nursery a few times, which makes the babe sleepy, and slowly lowers him into his crib before making his way to his bedroom. When he opens the door, he finds Draco standing there.

“Draco” he says before the other moves to hug him.

“Don’t. Alright. Harry, please just don’t.” He says and kisses Harry. Harry wants to say something but they are kissing and moving. Draco is pulling out of his transfigured pajamas, he is pulling Harry with him towards the bed. They kiss in the silence of the room. They remove their clothes and they are skin to skin. Harry kneels on the bed and Draco climbs onto his lap then leans back until his back touches the mattress and Harry is leaning above him. His legs move to wrap around the brunet bringing their erections together, making them moan through their kisses.

Lube is conjured and Draco shivers feeling the magic run over and into him preparing him. He grabs Harry’s hand that’s caressing his cheek and kisses the palm before moving it down over his body, over his sensitive nipples, down his belly button and further until Harry’s hand in touching his entrance. A finger breaches him and he kisses the brunet more deeply. He moves slowly as Harry adds a second and then a third finger. He grabs Harry’s bicep, his nails leaving crescent moons as the brunet finds his prostate. Harry chocks a moment when Draco fists his erection. Draco moves to dislodge Harry’s fingers moving the shaft into position. His eyes open and he sees Harry’s eyes in the semi-darkness. They both look down where they are almost connected but not quite. Then Draco lifts his pelvis up until the head pushes into his slick opening. They both look as Harry sinks into him slowly, Draco breathes shallowly as pain assaults him. It had been a long time since he and Harry had done this and he was not as flexible as he had been. Once Harry is fully inside, they stop. The ragged breaths filling the room. Draco’s eyes close and his arms wrap around Harry’s neck and shoulders. Harry moves again and Draco could cry from the relief but he is too busy kissing the man.

They keep the pace slow for Draco’s sake and the fact that both are quite exhausted. And it’s not sex or at least not just sex. Somehow they both know this is about something else. This is about years of not understanding one another, and about being alone while in each other's company, it’s about betrayal, and about anger, about guilt, and about their son, and about happiness. It’s so many I’m sorrys that cannot be spoken, it’s about Draco and Harry, and about Harry and Draco. When the sun finally shines some light into the bedroom, it finds the two men asleep entangled in each other.  

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Draco wakes up slowly to find Harry sitting next to him already dressed. The brunet is looking at him with an expression of such regret that Draco can’t stop himself.

“Don’t say it was a mistake” he begs.

“Draco—”

“You won’t forgive me?”

“I have forgiven you.”

“No you haven’t.” Draco says quietly as he rises slowly, sitting with his naked back against the headboard.

“I have. I just don’t…Draco I don’t trust you yet.” He says. Draco looks at him with so much sadness that Harry continues.

“I trust you with my life. I trust you with our son! I just don’t trust you…” _with my heart_. Draco can almost hear the words as if Harry had spoken them aloud.

Draco looks at his lap covered by the blankets. He slowly nods.

“I shouldn’t…” Harry starts.

“You’re not ready. I’m not sure I’m ready either. Maybe we’ll never be.” Draco cuts him off looking up at him. We are not ready, Harry agrees silently. He wants Draco. He always will want Draco, but Draco is still hiding behind Harry. And Harry still cannot trust him not to break him up again.

“Draco…if we make a mistake this time around what would we do about Scorpius?” Draco nods. He gets up and gathers his clothes putting them on quickly.

“We are not going to let this change things, are we?” He asks Harry once he is dressed. He realizes that in the past few months Harry and he had become friends in a way, certainly companions, allies in life? He did not want to lose that.

“We are not going to let this change things.” Harry agrees and hugs him.

Draco fears it might be awkward but it’s not, that’s all that matters. He understands now. Harry and he have created a small space among all the craziness that has been their relationship. Now they find their way back to this because they have a reason to find their way to this point; they have Scorpius. The existence of Scorpius will ensure that they never fly apart again but it can’t put them back together. Draco knows that now. His pregnancy, Scorpius’s birth, their companionship these months, they have taken away the anger but they have not returned Harry’s trust. Draco can accept this now. He knows what he must do. He thinks to himself, _I’ll wait_.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

In the next few days Draco writes to several apothecaries offering his services as a brewer. He visits his mother in hospital where she is quickly improving and prepares a rudimentary dosage for her to take in case of emergencies until the potion becomes certified and then a Healer can determine the appropriate daily doses for her. His father always leaves the room whenever he comes to see her.

“I’d like to meet Scorpius.” She tells him on her last day in St. Mungo’s.

“You could visit us.” He tells her holding her hand. “I would like it very much if you did.”

“I think I will.” She says with a brilliant smile squeezing his hand in return.

Three months later, Narcissa is a regular visitor at Grimmauld and Draco’s Potion is officially approved, becoming almost immediately available to Healers before it is more openly distributed. Draco has also been brewing for a number of apothecaries on commission. He doesn’t much enjoy the work, which doesn’t allow him to continue his experiments, but it, along with the first royalties from his potion, have brought him a respectable income. That night, over dinner, he tells Harry that he is making inquiries about a flat.

“You want to move out?” Harry asks putting his fork down.

“Yes.” Harry looks at him.

“You can come see Scorpius any time you like—”

“I know you wouldn’t keep him from me Draco. I, well, congratulations?”

“Thanks.” Draco says smiling. Draco thinks that Harry understands.

Three weeks later, Draco and Scorpius move to an apartment, although Draco continues to use the lab at Grimmauld, and life goes on.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	14. Waiting for You all Along

_Christmas time, three years later…_  

Draco checks his list again. He has bought gifts for everyone including Adam’s, which he could return or keep for himself. He was not sure yet. They were a really nice pair of Dragon skin boots and he and Adam were the same size. It’s not like the man would know. His relationship with Adam had been longer than Draco had expected it, being only his second relationship after he begun living on his own. He had only dated Jonathan for two months before it became too much, but he and Adam had lasted almost a year. And yet, Draco wasn’t all that broken up about seeing him go, which goes to show that letting go was the right thing to do. It was just too much to deal with, a son that was disaster prone, his new lab, two new apprentices that flirted with a level of incompetence that really had him seeing red most days, and a needy boyfriend? He already had an attention seeking child, he did not need a second one, thank you.

“I’m keeping them.” He says. He might not have been the most loving boyfriend, but he had good and expensive tastes, the boots were fabulous and he needed a new pair, so there.

A few hours later, with a parcel of shrunken gifts in one pocket and his son holding his hand and quickly walking beside him, Draco’s new boots crunch the snow as they make their way to the front door of the Burrow. Scorpius is already jumping up and down going on about cake and candy. All of which Draco will transfigure into whole grain treats if he can to make sure no sugar enters his son’s system. The child was a terror without it, but with sugar he was unmanageable. Draco was sure Molly Weasley fed his son candy on purpose, the woman still didn’t like Draco much and this was her subtle way of torturing him. If Scorpius ended having sugar, Draco decided, he’ll just drop him off at Harry’s for the weekend. Harry would probably send their son back to him via owl, he thinks smiling at the thought. Harry was still recovering from Scorpius’s last sugar attack after all.

The fact that Scorpius’s accidental magic had exploded most of Grimmauld’s kitchen last week had made Draco laugh so hard he cried. Harry who had been cleaning up the mess had not been as amused. “You fed him something sugary.” He accused Draco, which Draco had, but denied. Not that Harry believed him, Draco had been snickering too hard to pull it off.

Draco lifts Scorpius into his arms, so that the boy doesn’t slip and knocks on the front door. The door is quickly pulled open by Clara, Ron’s wife.

“Hey Draco, Scorpius!” She greets giving each a kiss on the cheek.

“Happy holidays Clara.” Draco says smiling.

“Everyone is already here, you are fashionably late as always!” comes from behind Clara and Pansy appears with a glass of something alcoholic, Draco is sure.He smirks at her.

“You could have been fashionably late as well if you wanted.” He says walking into the house only to be assaulted by a third female, this time Hermione.

“Well, hello there. Where’s my boy!” She says opening her arms wide and Scorpius half jumps out of his father’s arms to be enfolded in those of his godmother.

“I’ll never forgive you for making her godmother.” Pansy tells him with narrowed eyes.

“You despise children, love.” He tells her removing his coat.

“That’s not the point.” She says as if he is talking about an unrelated subject.

“To be godmother you need to take some babysitting duty. I just did not think you would be up for it.” Plus he was afraid of how his son would turn out if he had Pansy to guide him. Well, he would definitely be very fashionable, but Draco would see to that himself. Pansy seems to think about his point for a moment.

“You are right I’m just not the motherly type, unlike Granger.” Draco smiled and kissed her cheek. Pansy was trying for him after all. She had made friends with the Weasleys, even came to their parties. Although Draco suspects that might have something to do with Charlie Weasley’s very buff chest.

They move together further into the house responding to greetings coming from all directions. Draco spots Scorpius in Harry’s arms and smiles.

“Where’s Eric?” He asks Hermione who is giving him a drink. She smirks at him.

“Want to wish him happy Christmas?” She asks and Pansy snorts on his other side. Although he makes every effort to be polite and _nice_ , it’s no secret to anyone that there is no great love lost between Draco and Harry’s lover of two years.  

“Just wondering if he is outside freezing his bollocks or something.”

“More like roasting his bollocks this time of year. In Australia.” Hermione tells him overly casually.

“Australia?” He says lifting a brow.

“Don’t tell you didn’t hear about his transfer?”

“They are doing the long distance thing?” He asks because who cares about the bloody transfer he had heard nothing about.

“No, they are not. Nice split up, though. Staying friends and all that.” She smiles at him. And Pansy hmms. These women are evil; he decides he loves them anyway.

A few hours of merriment later, Draco and Harry are sitting on the couch watching their son stuff his face with candy Molly Weasley gave him.

“You are taking him with you.” Harry tells him before Draco has a chance to say the same to him.

“Damn it.” He says. They look at each other and laugh.

“So, you and Eric?” Draco says casually. Harry shrugs.

“It was a long time coming.” He says to Draco.

“The transfer?”

“The breakup.”

“Hm.”

“Are those the boots you bought for Adam?” Damn, he forgot that Harry and he had gone Christmas shopping together.

“We broke up.” He confesses.

“And you kept the boots.” Harry says smiling.

“They are nice boots.”

“Did you break up to keep the boots?” Harry says his smile widening. That’s not the reason, they both know it, but it’s as good a reason as any.

“They are nice boots” he repeats and Harry laughs.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A few weeks later, Draco sits on the bench watching Scorpius run around with a few other children playing in the snow. He keeps casting drying and warming charms at them every so often. The park is well hidden from muggles and he is not the only parent casting. He is casting another charm when Harry sits next to him.

“Been waiting long?” He asks and Draco shakes his head.

“We just got here.” He says looking at the mop of dark hair that runs around a few yards from where they sit. His son looks so much like Harry that it feels ridiculous to think there was ever a doubt as to who he belongs to. The only thing the little cretin inherited from Draco were his eyes and a flair for the dramatic Draco hopes he outgrows before he enters his teens.

“We are going to have our hands full with this one.” Harry tells him looking at the boy as well.

“A few more years and he’s McGonagall’s problem.” Draco says.

“Makes you feel bad for her?”

“Not really. She managed you. I’m sure Scorpius can’t possibly be worse than that.” He says and Harry smiles. They are silent for a moment, sitting next to one another.

“Go out with me.” Harry says slowly. Draco’s head snaps to look at the brunet.

“What?”

“Go out with me, Draco.”

“Are you asking?”

“Yes.” Harry says. They are ready, Harry thinks. Maybe, no, not maybe, definitely. Draco smiles, and Harry is completely sure. His breath catches and he smiles back. He has been waiting. He has been waiting for that smile for years. He would have waited all his life if need be for it.

“I’d love to, Harry.” Draco says as his gloved hand rests over Harry's.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

_One and a half years later…_

Draco is so tired, he is exhausted, broken and all he wants in the world is to know where the bloody hell is the coffee table! He had been in the atrium of the Ministry, where the conference for Improvements on Healing Potions was being held, for twenty minutes now looking for the bloody awful brew. Draco hated coffee, but he needed it if he was to stay awake long enough to give his key note speech on his new Potions research.

Why do I do these things to myself ? He thinks, as he considers his situation. For some inconceivable reason, he had thought that having a new born, accepting a part time lecturing position at St. Mungo’s potion’s division, and expanding his own lab, taking on three more apprentices would all be manageable. Serves him right for being such a romantic sap, he decides. 

Little more than a year ago, Harry and he began dating again, which lasted about four months, just long enough for them to plan the wedding. They had not been in their honeymoon twenty four hours and Draco, at the high of his romanticism and with more champagne than blood in his veins, had asked his new husband if they should try for another child. Harry’s enthusiasm at the idea was predictable enough, and Draco suspects he conceived on that same night. Pregnancy was annoying and giving birth did not get any easier second time around, but that was fine because now they had another beautiful son, Leo. However, having an over-active four year old and a nocturnal four month old was killing both him and Harry.

Draco finally spots the coffee table behind two large potted decorative plants and makes a run for it. Two strong cups later and he feels much better about the whole situation. Everything was great. He had a successful career, his mother doted on her grandchildren and even his father visited from time to time. Although he was still resenting Draco’s choice to take Harry’s name and only giving the name Potter to their children. Draco really didn’t give a shit.

He is enjoying his third cup leisurely when he hears his name being called and turns to look at Brandon Davis. Draco had seen him around on other occasions, it was impossible not to, but this was the first time the man had approached him.

“Brandon.” He says inclining his head and politely waiting.

“I read on the schedule you will be speaking.”

“Yes…”

“Draco Malfoy-Potter?”

“Yes…” Where is this going? Everyone knew he and Harry tied the knot, it had been plastered all over the papers.

“Congratulations are in order then.”

“Thank you.” Draco says a little impatiently, was there a point to this conversation?

“I wanted to apologize.” Brandon finally says a little uncomfortable, probably aware of Draco’s impatience.

“About expecting you to abort the child.” He explains.

“Scorpius.” Draco corrects him.

“What?”

“His name is Scorpius.” Brandon nods in acceptance.

“It wasn’t my place to expect you to make such a choice.” Ha says again.

“No, it wasn’t. But, this is all in the past, I accept your apology.” Draco says and slightly turns as he sees Harry approaching them.

“Hey” Harry says to him before turning to Brandon.

“Davis” He says curtly.

“Potter” Brandon replies.

“Where's—” Harry begins looking at Draco, only for Draco to answer quickly.

“Behind the potted plants.” He says, revealing the location of the coffee. Harry gives him a slight smile and a nod before turning into that direction. Draco watches him walk away. I have the most brilliant fucking husband, he thinks. Maybe another child is in order, in a couple more years. Draco knows Harry would like to have a girl.

“I hope I didn’t cause you any problems—” Brandon begins.

“None at all.” Draco replies calmly.

“I accept your apology but would ask that you do not approach me again.” Brandon looks in Harry’s direction.

“It’s not about Harry. I don’t see how any more interaction between you and me is necessary Brandon, and no offense, but you remind me of my mistakes. You and I will never be comfortable in each other’s company so let’s not force it.” Brandon nods in agreement before saying goodbye and moving away.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

“That was bloody awful” Harry says as they floo to Grimmauld, and Draco can’t disagree. He is a potion Master and still was bored out of his mind.

“Hey” Hermione says from the stairs.

“I thought I heard you come in. Leo is asleep now.” She tells them as she grabs her briefcase.

“How was the conference?”

“Boring.” they say in unison.

“Hm. Well, I got to run.” She tells them before giving each a kiss and flooing off.

“That woman is always running about.” Draco says.

“Hm.” Harry responds hugging his husband and placing kisses at the nape of his neck.

“You got enough coffee in your system to get frisky with me Potter?” Draco jokes leaning his head to the side to give Harry better access.

“Yea, Potter.” Harry responds.

“And… we still got an hour before we need to pick up Scorpius…”

“A quickie…” Draco says shamelessly pushing his backside against Harry’s erection. Soon they are on the couch kissing and disrobing clumsily. Harry is licking and biting Draco’s sensitive nipple driving the blonde to incoherence when the wailing starts.

“Bloody fucking Hell!” Draco says. He and Harry stop and wait a moment. Sometimes Leo just drops back asleep before you even get to the nursery. This is not one of those times as a wails increase.

Harry sighs and pulls off his husband adjusting himself while Draco awkwardly gets up. The blonde stands there a moment, willing his erection down. Harry gets up and follows his husband up the stairs.

“Will we ever have sex again?” He asks rhetorically. Draco smiles and grabs his husband’s hand as they walk into the nursery.

“Behind strong silencing charms for the next few years, but wait until we ship them off to Hogwarts, we’ll fuck until we go cross-eyed.” He tells him, and they both laugh.

_End._

 

 


End file.
